Dragon Wars
by aLittleOblivion
Summary: After being betrayed by the government and nation Gray had sworn his life to serve and protect, Gray, the best long range sniper alive, sets out to reveal the corruption laid bare. But, when that mission is interrupted when his path crosses once again with an old comrade, an explosion of fire begins the hunt. Natsu may find more than he bargains for as he sets after his once savior
1. A Debt Repaid

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

 *****WARNING: This is an M rated story with violence and the consenting sexual relationship of two men. If either of these offends you, do not continue.*****

* * *

 **Chapter 1: A Debt Repaid**

"ETA five minutes." No reply came from his stoic partner, shrouded in dark matted garb over the hard edges of his combat gear, though he wasn't expecting one. His breaths were soft, thin threaded lines among the whipping wind which sliced as knives with the dawn light over the valley's breadth and just outside of the old broken window on the fifth floor of the long-since evacuated factory building. But as the war-torn region had either brought death to the workers who once slaved away in the concrete confine, or its shadow had bit at their heels as they had fled with their lives, it had become the home of the two brothers for the past three days.

Those days had slinked by with barely enough words passed between them to have filled a single moment in a happy home. But, they were used to it. Years of training and even more still on the frontlines, or the edges as it were, as the best long-range reconnaissance team the Fiori special ops had ever seen, had left them honed as keen as sharpened ice. Though they had forsaken the bars and stars of the military, they remained regimented and professional in their mission.

Gray hadn't so much as shifted in the last twenty hours. He lay on his belly, one eye pressed to the socket of the scope of his custom LM110, his left arm tucked with the butt of the long rifle against the inner curve of his shoulder. Beside him, and similarly cloaked with black camo paint masking his pearlescent pale skin, Lyon propped himself up on his elbows, LR binoculars clutched between his fingers, as he turned his attention to the dull polarized screen of his digital readout. "22.4 degrees Fahrenheit," Lyon listed, and that fact showed in the pluming white cloud drifting past his lips with his hot breath. "Wind, three knots North by Northwest, 4 clicks." Just as he turned back to his binoculars, a train of Humvees bumped along the dirt road across the wide canyon between them and a small clearing.

Similarly, from across the rim of the canyon, a pair of SUVs sped toward the meeting. Right on time, Lyon thought absently. He appreciated when things went according to the intel, and there had not been a single deviation on this particular op yet. The vehicles slid to a stop, facing eachother with metal grills and brush guards shining like metal teeth on giant beasts. Lyon twisted the magnification on his binoculars and read off the distance from the infrared laser gauge. 1400 yards, with a mild cross wind. It wasn't the hardest shot they had pulled off, but it was damn near close. Honestly, if it were anyone but Gray behind the trigger, he'd never believe that the shot could be done, but as it was, he'd never seen his brother miss. The car doors swung open in synch, almost as if on cue.

Curtains up.

"Wait for positive ID," Lyon ordered softly, though he knew it was unnecessary. Just as he had confidence in his brother's marksmanship skills, so too did he firmly believe in the cold ice that ran through his veins. Giants of men, hulking in muscle, shifted out of the cars. Each bore a strap over their shoulder, large imposing automatic weapons hung. And then she stepped out. Long flowing red hair trailed down her back, waving with the wind as her hips swung in complete confidence behind a bull of a man who towered over her with an LMG in his mitts. In a sleek black dress, she may have been at place in a ballroom dinner, though her eyes were of a dangerous blood chilling shine. She wasn't the target, but if she was there.

Behind her, a sleek-backed man in a polished black suit swung out of the back SUV. He tugged at his luxurious coat, and grinned wickedly as he ran a hand back over gleaming blue hair. Siegrain Fernandez.

Action.

"That's a positive ID. We are green. Wait for the trade to take place then take him out." Shifting, Lyon switched his concentration to the meeting through the long barrel of his high def., military res., long range recon camera. He snapped pictures silently, making sure to capture as the head of a known dark militia sauntered off the lead green Hummer. He was a sight, Laxus Dreyar, with his strong steel blue eyes under jagged blond hair which was slicked back underneath his black sunglasses. He gave silent orders to his comrades, leaving the majority to his right hand man, with his long flowing green hair, to secure. Lyon could practically hear the crunching of the dirt under the high-laced military boots as Laxus moved to meet his opposite – the refined and polished politician with a charming smile.

Lyon's finger twitched, taking picture after picture, capturing irrefutable proof as the two went about their backdoor exchange. A briefcase – the content of which were satellite readouts from Fiori Intelligence – passed from Siegrain's hand to the dangerous man with a lightning grin. "You are go," Lyon ordered.

But just as Gray's finger was about to squeeze in on the trigger, a fierce man with bold bright pink hair standing resolute against his charcoal suit, stepped directly between the two conspirators and the sniper team's shot. He crossed his arms over his chest, turning to face directly across the canyon and to the barren factory building at its edge. Lyon softly cursed. "Shit, that's Natsu. Gray, the meeting's almost over, if you don't take the shot now . . ." but Lyon knew the trigger wouldn't be pulled. The shot would have to take down Natsu to get to the man behind him and Gray would never pull the trigger on an innocent. Though, he had to at least argue, the entire mission was at stake. "Gray, he's not innocent. He's guarding our target. You have to take the shot."

"He's just doing his job," Gray spoke for the first time in two days. "I shoot, we become exactly what we set out to stop. No. Abort."

"Gray," Lyon scowled into his binoculars and watched as Natsu's head tilted a little and a small smile played on his lips. His hand raised high. In his palm he held a small grey box with a metal antenna. His thumb trailed over its center. "Shit, what's he doi-"

Hell erupted.

There was a single click of a metal mechanism which had ricocheted off the empty concrete pillar like a chilling dread-filled ping-pong ball, before the early morning was consumed in fire. It stamped down on him with an overwhelming fury. The heat scalded his back, jumping over his skin and crushing him into dust. Dimly conscious, he tumbled out of the window, thrown by the explosion as if a mighty mythical dragon had reared back and kicked him through the threshold with a powerful claw. The force ripped through him, smashing through the remaining glass.

It sliced wicked thin lines. Crimson painted his face through the black camouflage as he fell. The glass sparkled, falling with him. His vision flashed. His hair whipped past him as the darkness took hold.

Waking with a rasping cough that tore at his throat with a thousand knives, Gray's eyes cracked open. He felt completely destroyed, his entire body broken and numb. And he hung limp. It took him several hazy minutes to finally figure out that he was hanging like a ragdoll by his feet from the crooked branches above. Good boots, he laughed internally, swinging through the air, his arms loose over his head. Or was it below his head. Gods, his head hurt.

But, he willed his stubbornly refusing body to swing through the air. He was a pendulum ornament upon that tree, swinging like a monkey, childishly back and forth. And he grinned stupidly. And, he was clearly losing it. Yet he managed to close his arms in a tight hug around the trunk's girth, welcoming the bite of the sharp bark against his cheek. Twisting his foot, he grimaced as a jolt of searing pain lanced through him. Ankle broken. Great. With one leg at an awkward jutting angle from the tree, Gray slid his hands down.

Slowly, he shimmied his way down the three floors to the waiting ground so far below. With every movement, the bark cut into his palms. His leg wracked him with indescribable pain, but he pressed on in an agonizingly slow trek. The brown shell of the tree was painted with shining red iron, the warmth seeping out from Gray's body as he went. When his boot's heel thunked on the ground, he fell back, smacking hard with the cold dirt. Limp and utterly useless, his arms fell out to either side of him. Gray looked up the tree to the charred crumbling floor five stories up as one would laying on a blanket under the stars.

Lyon. Gray's eyelids fell over his crystal blue vision, and his brother's face dominated. "Damn it!" Gray growled, forcing himself to fight against the all-too welcoming and comfortable embrace of the eternal sleep he knew was just a breath away. His vision was dim, his thoughts sluggish, and his body unresponsive, but somehow he forced himself to his feet. Shifting his weight onto his good foot, Gray teetered, laying a palm on the tree.

He had to find Lyon. Damn it, what the hell happened? Clenching his teeth, Gray took in one long, determined breath of the morning air, and set himself. As he hobbled forward, his hand trailed down to his side where he unstrapped an M9 from around his thigh.

Gray didn't know how long it took him to make it to the ridgeline. He collapsed back into the ground, staring bitterly at the building below him. Breathing hard, his chest pounded, just as spikes drilled into his skull. And he watched.

He watched as Fiori Dragon five-man squads secured the abandoned factory building. He watched the military trained movements, the quick and unyielding command as they formed a perimeter. Several teams breached its south door and rushed into the building. In a crouched run, guns trained at the ready, they entered. And Gray watched as, after only a couple minutes, they carried a body back out the door. His helmet had been blasted off, and Gray could see the white hair on the lifeless body, his head bobbing back and forth as two Dragons carried him out.

Eyes red-rimmed and burning, Gray twisted on the hillside, pushing himself off the ground. Only after he had crawled into the driver seat and was winding down an old dirt road in their evac jeep, did Gray allow the tears to fall.

When he reached his destination – an old dark warehouse at the port of the business district in Magnolia - the shroud of night had begun to fall over the shoulders of the bustling city. He flashed the hi-beams with a short blinking code and a sheet-metal wall drew back into the ceiling. Numb, he flicked off the engine, sliding out of the jeep. Clutching the M9 in his torn and bloodied hand at his side, he limped through the garage and into the main open warehouse.

"Gray, holy shit, what happened to you?"

Blinking slowly, Gray stared at his team. What was left? His team. There had been five. Now, there were two.

"Gray, gods, you look like you were blown to kingdom come. Here, sit down."

But, Gray said nothing. The world had grown cold. Too cold. He looked carefully into the eyes of his remaining teammate. Or so he had been before Gray had set out on that mission. "How long were you in their pocket, Del?"

The tiny intel man with jet black hair shook his small wiry face rapidly. To look at him, you would sooner have guessed he was a desk jockey, a hacker with horn-rimmed glassed and the eyes of a child. But, Gray knew better. This man had seen the bloodshed of war, and had almost reveled in the spilling of it. It had been a mistake to bring him along when they went AWOL. Just because Del had been a part of their squad, Gray had seen to overlook all that lay in those pitch black eyes.

"What are you talking about, Gray?"

Sighing, Gray shifted a little more of his weight off his now baseball sized swollen ankle. "Never mind, it doesn't matter." His hand was steady as it swung up. When the gun sparked, the shot's bang pitched through the warehouse. Blood sprayed at Gray just as Del collapsed in a heap to the ground. From the hole in his forehead, two streams of blood trailed down his smokey face, tracing red lines down past hollow eyes.

Empty, Gray pulled Del's chair to him and collapsed into it. Flicking on their comp, Gray's fingers danced, clacking over the keyboard. He had about fifteen minutes – if they hadn't already caught his scent – before Apache choppers descended on the warehouse with at least three fully outfitted Dragon teams. Pushing the pain deep inside of him, Gray focused on the glowing screen, quickly scanning lines upon lines of GPS readouts. Then, communications. Everything he needed on his targets, he copied to an external hard drive.

Then, keying in a code, watched the computer fizzle and spat, sizzling as code devoured everything like a thick poison in the system's bloodstream. Tucking the hard drive under an arm, he fitted a small circular mine to the computer tower's shell. The explosive latched on with a metal smack, green LEDs glowing green as Gray pushed his thumb into its center.

Ten minutes.

Hobbling to the weapon locker, Gray laid his palm over the ID plate. After the locks popped, he grabbed a long sleek black rifle out of the cabinet. From the drawers he took a thin cylindrical slotted silencer, cases of bullets. Then from beside them, he tugged an assault rifle clear of its restraints, and slid its strap over his shoulder. After sliding a combat knife into his boot, he made for his bunk and draped a sterling silver necklace over his head.

Then Lyon's. Flipping the picture frame next to Lyon's cot over in his hand, he smashed its glass surface down against the hard wooden shipping container that had served as his nightstand. Fishing the picture free, Gray carefully tucked it into his combat vest's front pocket.

Six minutes.

Taking Lyon's keys, he made for the side door. Though, halfway, he stopped, frowning. Shaking his head, Gray quickened his pace, retracing his steps back to the weapon locker. Fishing inside a drawer, he pulled out a small com. Twisting the mic on, Gray sent it rolling over the warehouse floor, before making for the garage.

Three minutes.

Turning the engine over in Lyon's Tesla, Gray tapped the exit button and slammed his good foot down on the accelerator. He rocketed back into the streets around the dock. Jamming the e-brake, the tires squealed as the car rapidly spun in a 180 before shooting off between buildings.

The Tesla's comp in the dash framed a neon red two minutes later. Gray smiled thinly. Faster than he had expected, but he had managed to put enough distance between him and the warehouse. Lyon would kill him if he knew Gray had stolen his car, but, Gray rationalized, it was better than leaving it to be torn apart by the federal pigs. Besides, all the tech work Lyon had done in fiddling with the internal computer meant that he had a link into the highest level of government security clearances. Hell, it was probably the only mobile level three access computer in Fiori.

The first order of business, Gray had to stop by an old friend's. As it happened, as he pulled into Levi's driveway, the com-line buzzed. Gray, silent in the night, sat in the car and hooked the receiver over his ear.

" _Sir, he's not here."_

 _"Yeah, I didn't expect him to be."_

Natsu. Gray growled. That fucking bastard.

" _Well, looks like he figured out how we were on to the whole operation. One shot. Clean. No emotion. Yeah, this was definitely Gray. What'd you boys find?"_

 _"Weapon locker was open, three large slots open, two small."_

 _"We can assume some of those were from the botched assassination. But, he would have made sure to grab what he needed while he was here. Be sure, he's fully armed. At the very least, he picked up another long range rifle."_

 _"Sir, we aren't going to be getting anything off this wreck."_

 _"Take it with us anyway, I'm sure the lab techs can dig out something even with the computer blown to bits. Okay, anything else?"_

 _"Jeep parked in the garage with quite a bit of blood on the driver seat."_

 _"Hmm, so he's definitely hurt then, get a track on any possible medical access. And he drove off in a different vehicle. Okay, we begin this manhunt now! I want Gray Fullbuster dead or in chains by tomorrow night. Sting, I want a full detail on the hospital. I don't know how, but he'll find out. And once Gray knows his brother's alive, he'll go for him."_

 _"Roger, that."_

Gray froze. The rest of the orders drowned out in a dull shadow at the back of Gray's mind. Lyon's alive? Dropping the walkie-talkie on the passenger seat, Gray flicked on the dash-comp's screen. The results of the search popped up almost as instantly as he had typed them in.

\- Magnolia Central

\- Classified, level two, Federal

\- Admitted patient:

\- GI John Doe

\- Multiple lacerations, severe concussion, internal bleeding, detached retina, broken …

Gray swallowed hard on the bile rising up in his throat as the list continued on and on. Gods, practically his whole body was broken. Gray skipped to the end of the list.

-,coma.

\- GI John Doe admitted 6:22:18 08:21:05

\- room 217

Tapping the screen off, Gray took in a breath to steady himself. They would have set up a trap for him. But, he had to go anyway. He had to see with his own eyes. He had to know Lyon was still alive.

The door clicked shut silently. He made his way to the front door, managing to give Levi – his childhood friend and the only person he could trust – a weak waning smile before blacking out, collapsing into her arms.

* * *

"Gray, you cannot be serious."

"I have to go, Levi. If he's alive—"

"What good will going there and seeing him do? You can't take him out of there. Even if you were somehow able to manage it past what I'm sure is the entire army in a hospital, you can't take him out. Not if he's in the condition you say he is. Moving him will kill him."

"I need to see him."

"And you'll just end up getting yourself killed for it."

Gray smiled softly, framing Levi's face in his palm. It had already been too long. He'd stayed with her for almost two weeks – which she had insisted upon after she had administered her expert medical schooling on him. Damn, she was a stubborn woman. But, Gray, could move reasonably well now. The ankle barely hummed as it accepted most of his weight. Sure, it was going to slow him down, but he couldn't wait any longer. He couldn't not know for sure if Lyon was alive or not. And, he couldn't stay there any longer. Every day put Levi at even more risk. Honestly, he was amazed that marines hadn't burst through the door long ago.

"Thanks for everything, Lev."

She sighed softly, lightly grabbing his wrist with soft fingers. "Take care of yourself. Honestly, you two stupid boys have been such a pain in my ass every since we were eight."

Smiling, Gray kissed her brow. And before anything more could be said, he made for the door. Setting himself resolute as he slid into the driver seat of the midnight blue Tesla, Gray glanced to the window. He gave her a small thanking smile. She waved once.

Parking the car two blocks from the hospital, Gray studied the blueprint of the building he had pulled up on the dash-comp. He committed every hallway, stair, and elevator to memory before he popped the trunk. Grabbing the short-range gear, Gray looked longingly at his LM110. Infiltration, hand-to-hand, this Bond shit, it wasn't his game. He was a long range recon sniper. But, he'd step into this game if that's what it had come to. Shutting the trunk, Gray locked the car.

Across the street, he glanced back at the shining blue Tesla. Hell, Bond couldn't even come close to Lyon's car. Tugging at his suit jacket, Gray felt awkward and utterly transparent, sure the ballistic vest underneath was obvious. And sure he'd be spotted in an instant.

But, he'd managed to make it into the dragon, trying his best to blend in with a grieving herd of family members, weighed down and worried with despair as they crept along to the ICU. Once he made it past reception, he ducked into an empty stairwell. His heart was thundering underneath the layers of protection he wore. He'd seen noone yet. Not a single uniform. Not a single military personnel. Maybe it was luck. But, he wasn't stupid or naïve enough to put any weight on such a thing. On the second floor, the feeling just grew worse.

It crawled over him like icy fingers. Nothing. This wasn't Natsu. But he proceeded. Whatever would come he would deal with when it came, Gray decided. Sliding around a corner, his eyes narrowed. Down the hall was Lyon's room.

And in front of it were two armed military guards. Though, Gray watched for a second to make absolutely sure he was seeing what his brain told him he was seeing. The men, both young and fresh, seemed much more interested in eachother's tonsils than guarding the hospital room. Indeed, the taller of the two had pressed the other up against the wall, devouring his mouth, as his hands hooked to the smaller's hips. He lifted him against the wall, driving down into him with an overwhelming fiery passion in the public hallways. Doctors and nurses weaved past them back and forth as they devoured each other.

Gray took advantage of the opening and slid through the door, though even as he closed the door, the animalistic sounds coming from the hallways, the deep sultry moaning groans, drew his cheeks hot. Trying his best to shake it off, he walked into the room.

The blush immediately faded. As with all amusement and heat. Ice trailed thick down Gray's veins. On the virgin white hospital sheets, Lyon lay thin and weak, hooked up to an army of machines. Tubes twisted around him, down his mouth, leading to a machine that pumped like an accordion, filling his destroyed frame with oxygen. It seemed as if hundreds of wires coiled around him, leading to so many displays and monitors. An IV trickled down into the back of his hand.

Gods, it grabbed at his heart with a tight unforgiving fist to see his brother like that, more machine than man, broken and feeble there on the hospital bed. He moved to Lyon's side, falling to a knee as he took his brother's hand between his. It was cold. So cold. But there was a slight beat. It was faint, but it sounded quiet and regular on the beeping monitor above his head as well.

"He'll come out of it, he's too strong to die."

Gray completely froze. He had slipped, let himself be too drawn away by seeing Lyon. Slowly he turned on a heel, standing in a smooth motion, and stared straight down the barrel of a Colt.

Behind it, Natsu's green eyes burned an inferno, drilling into him. Though, after what seemed an eternity, he relaxed, pulling the gun back to his side. When Gray made no move, Natsu just sighed, shaking his head. "This is a repayment of a very old debt, Captain. You saved my life back in Ceredel. And now, we are even. A life for a life." He jerked his head to the door. "Get out of here. Next time I see you, I will pull the trigger."

Outside the door, the two guards looked at him. Both were disheveled, hair awry, and panting hard, but they grinned.

As he walked away, he promised, "I'll see you again, Lyon, once this is all over."

* * *

 **Next Chapter: Angles**


	2. Angles

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

 *****WARNING: This is an M rated story with violence and the consenting sexual relationship of two men. If either of these offends you, do not continue.*****

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Angles**

"Major Forester, Sir!" The warrant officer manning the single entrance onto Fort Cragg, snapped off a crisp salute.

Gray inclined his staff white officer hat, tugging it down over his set cobalt blue eyes. It was a move to show recognition to the young fresh soldier, but really to shade his face from the overhead security cameras posted on the tall steel fence-line to either side of the foot entrance.

"Sir, would you like help carrying your luggage?"

"As you were."

"Sir!" The boy snapped off again, focusing his eyes to the far stretching blue sky above. He reached down, jamming his finger into a button on the control panel in his small wooden guard shack underneath its steepled roof.

Gray set his jaw firm, his eyes icy cold. The electronic gate buzzed before popping open. His military boots crunched on the dry packed dirt underneath as he made his way through the camp. He kept his gaze as steel, his shoulders stiff and practiced with the gait only a military trained soldier could possess. The layout of the fort had been exactly to the specs he had pulled up on the level three computer in Lyon's Tesla. And he spotted his vantage point across the main clearing, small and secluded up the barren desert bank.

He made for it, neither moving too quickly, or too slowly. He walked with a purpose, not going straight back to the target, but neither wandering. He moved with the slightest of a limp from his still injured ankle, but he did his best to hide it in his stride. As he walked through the courtyard, training squads ran past in fatigues, chanting as they hustled in two long lines of formation. At the head, a bald man barked off a line only to repeated by the mindless chorus that ran behind.

Gray never really had understood the practice. He had gone through it of course during his years in the uniform, but he never understood its worth. Were the enemies to be petrified by the chanting of lines which were more often sexually stunted and childish than not? To break the mind, Gray thought. That was the only function of ninety-percent of his training.

It was all to strip away the individual, cut away all thoughts. And you were left with thousands of faces under regimentally cropped buzz cuts without a single thing going on between their ears than the orders they were given. Orders, Gray thought darkly, that didn't come from military needs, battle decisions, or even the desire to stop the fighting. They came from the top. From suits who had never seen the battlefield, never seen the horror of a man torn apart by thousands of rounds of rattling armor piercing rounds. Or seen the mayhem left after a drone strike dropped death over a town of people.

There were a few who survived the brainwashing. But those few ended up more insane for it. With their own thoughts left to turn, they were driven to it by all the blood, by all the broken and discarded lives. It took a lot to kill a man. Even more still to live with it. A Humvee roared past him kicking up clouds of dust behind its thick massive rubber tires. Stopping at the fort's center, Gray glanced up the towering chrome pole piercing the sky. At its brass tip, a wide glorious flag waved to the honor and pride of the Democracy of Fiori.

The brilliant reds, the shocking yellow waved on the wind behind the green olive branches. The central dogma of Fiori. Its existence. The government, its far stretching land, its millions of citizens, and even its dangerous and massive military. They were all for peace.

What a joke.

As he walked, all the soldiers who were not lying on the ground dying from the oppressive hundred-ten degree (F) heat snapped off regimented salutes to the high ranking Major. The ground waved with the heat. Though, Gray didn't feel it. Soldiers panted, their fatigues soaked through with sweat from the overwhelming fiery sun's breath in the desert. Some, red faced and cloudy-eyed passed out to be whisked off to a medical tent. But Gray had ice in his veins. He didn't so much as have a bead of sweat rolling down his face as he walked through the crowd.

Another Humvee rolled passed. In its bed three soldiers lay on their backs, cold grey towels over their face. Yet, the drill instructors kept pushing.

The rapid click-clacking of nearly a hundred assault rifles meant Gray was nearing the long firing range at the fort's rim. His vantage point was just ahead of him. Slipping into a small storage shed, Gray slid over a bar lock across the inside of the door. He walked still cool and calm as if hundred's of military eyes were still upon him as he climbed the old creaky wood steps to the upper floor of the supply shed.

Pushing a crate to the side, Gray knelt on the worn wood, carefully placing his long hard black case next to him. He flicked out a combat knife carving a notch out of the already warped planks of the shed's wall. Gray squinted through the opening. He could see only a slit where the wood had swollen and parted during the rains of the years gone by. It left a miniscule fraction of the fort visible. There were taller buildings all around him. Near the opposite rim of the desert fort was a lookout tower that spanned six stories like a spire.

A million other better vantage points to snipe from, but that was what exactly made the storage shed the best choice, and Gray's pick. That accompanied with the fact that particular shed had been in misuse for a year with barely any soldier going there and the location near the firing range to mask his shot. It was perfect.

His black case's clasps snapped open at his fingers touch. From it, he pulled out a sleek long black rifle. Its metallic grey holding was matted until it reached the midnight black barrel which stretched on to a point. The scope, a tapering segmented piece of bluish black matte, screwed on at the back of the barrel where dulled metal wheels controlled its focus.

At the butt of the rifle near the flat of where it would rest against his shoulder, a wrapping midnight blue bird-like symbol was etched into the rifle's handle. A memory. And a promise. Gray picked up the rifle with all the weight of the past it brought with it. Flipping off his officer's hat, Gray tossed it into the case and settled down on his stomach. On the worn wood he made small adjustments, lining the rifle's barrel with the carved hole.

Before completely settling in, Gray more closely examined the LR camera he had rigged to the scope of his sniper rifle. A short wire brought a button down the gun's side to where Gray had secured it at the ring around the rifle's trigger. They wouldn't be as damning and perfect as Lyon's photographs, but the mission still meant he needed proof. Without it, he was but a butcher. Shifting, Gray brought the back of the rifle against his shoulder, hooking his left arm across his chest to steady it. And his breathing slowed as he looked through the scope.

* * *

Natsu stepped out of the lead Humvee, his dress shoe crunching the dry desolate ground beneath his sole. Bringing his hand up, he shaded his eyes while he scanned the military fort. It was hot, boiling hot. So much so that steam radiated coiling at his feet and wavering dancing lines on the horizon. The little bit of water that the soil had left scorched away. Yet he felt at home. The heat comforted him for reasons he didn't dare think about then. Just the fact that there was no snow to be found for miles around soothed his body and mind.

Plus, it meant that the shot would be much, much harder. Heat convection.

Captain Gray Fullbuster was here, Natsu squinted behind his dark black sunglasses. He was sure of it. Somewhere. But where?

The man was an enigma. None knew that more than First Lieutenant Natsu Dragneel. The captain was the only reason he was alive today. He had looked up to Captain Fullbuster all throughout his training, his first ops. The day he was handpicked by the captain as part of his Dragon squad had quite simply been one of the happiest of his life. But something had changed. Something had twisted the man.

He went AWOL. He had vanished after Ceredel. Gone, with the rest of the squad. Something happened. Natsu flicked his gaze from building to building. With quick hand signals, he sent his team scattering throughout the camp. Two to the watchtower. That was the likeliest of spots for a sniper to perch. Two to everything he saw that could possibly have eyes on the center of the fort. Any clear angle to the dais at the foot of the flagpole would be cut off.

He needed to know what that was. What had turned the bravest man he had ever known, his hero, into Fiori's most dangerous villain? The captain was a rogue now. The rest of the squad was gone with the exception of Lyon lying in the hospital. He just hoped that Lyon would wake before the day came where he found Fullbuster again, before he had to pull the trigger.

Natsu was a soldier. Captain Fullbuster had taught him everything, every tactic, every strategy, every belief he held on to. For that reason, he was the man put in charge to stop the rogues, the once proud Fairy Tail squad. And for that reason, he would do it. He would hunt them down if it came to protecting their targets. Because, the ones with Gray's bullseyes on their foreheads were generals, senators, even some of the President's cabinet. The leaders of Fiori. Gray had taught Natsu of honor, of the valor in serving to protect his country from all forms of threat, foreign . . . and domestic. And for that reason, he would stop Captain Fullbuster.

Confirmations of his orders rang in his earpiece as man after man reported in that they found their areas empty. Natsu lifted his gaze to the surrounding landscape. It was entirely possible that Gray wasn't even in the compound. A man like him could have taken the shot from halfway around the world. But he had a nagging feeling that Gray was here. The captain was the man who had trained him after all, he knew how Gray thought. Or at least, he used to.

When the all clear was signaled in his ear, Natsu waved his hand, signaling the rest of the procession to proceed. Out of the rear vehicle, Scarlet, the Secretary of War's most trusted bodyguard stepped out first followed behind by Siegrain in his sleek black suit. He tugged at the cuff of his shirt, folding it over the handcuff wrapped around his wrist and chaining him to the briefcase in his hand. He ran his free hand back through his royal blue hair, inclining his head to Natsu as he passed. The lieutenant fell in line step for step with the secretary.

Gray had gone after him once and failed. Natsu had no doubt that he would try again for the same target before moving on. Especially since it had been during that job that put Lyon, Gray's brother, in the hospital.

This was an important mission, just as it was routine. Inside the briefcase, or what was militarily termed, 'the football', were the launch codes for the Etherion Missile. The Etherion was a satellite based nuclear, electro-magnetic weapon so devastating that it could spell the end of all life on earth. It could wipe entire nations from the surface in a single blast. And as Fiori's Secretary of War, Siegrain was charged with safekeeping the codes and personally delivering them to General Acknog, the military leader of the Fiori Army.

The codes were changed every seventy-two hours, and the handoff always happened in the open inside a secured military base. Though which military base was one of the highest classified locations, Natsu knew Gray would be there.

Out of the command building, a detail of twenty staff officers formed a phalanx around the general as he proceeded to meet Siegrain at the base of the flagpole flying Fiori valor high. He stepped up to the stone reaching out to shake Siegrain's hand with his large beast-sized mitt.

The first shot exploded with the briefcase just as Siegrain was to hand it to the general. Classified papers tore free from the black shell, flying into the air with the force of the explosion.

The second shot brushed directly in front of Natsu's glasses. Indeed when he would later take them off, there was a small stretching scratch across the bowed nose piece. And the Secretary of War crumbled to the ground, limp. The second shot came so close after the first that Natsu had little more time than to turn his head as the bullet entered Siegrain's temple only to exit and bury in the dry parched dirt.

A piercing siren rang as papers danced in the air, falling around the lifeless man. The clean white paper bathed red.

* * *

 **Next Chapter: The Chase**


	3. The Chase

**Chapter 3: The Chase**

As soon as he fired the second shot, Gray moved. His hands were quick as lightning, unscrewing the poly-scope off the rifle's top. He spun the entire pinched metal cylinder, laying it on its side with the gentlest of touches just as he pulled apart the long barrel of the LM108. Within second, the entire rifle was compressed to a small black box no bigger than a briefcase. Tugging out a tan pack from the case he had carried in, he stuffed the rifle at its bottom. Pulling out rust colored fatigues, his finger flew down his clothes, the clasps of his white pressed officer's jacket snapped open. Slipping out of the mask of a decorated major, he stepped into the boots of a chief. High enough of rank to warrant acting separate from the masses of soldiers, yet not so high as to draw attention to his actions as an enlisted soldier.

Tugging the military cap, scrawling in red and muddy brown camo, low to shadow his eyes, he shouldered the standard-issue pack. He looked no different than the hundreds of soldiers running in line, chanting as they had passed out from heat stroke under the burning sun. Slipping out of the shed, he slid into step like a whispering shadow with the soldiers running from the firing range for the barracks and their orders. Reaching out, he snatched an assault rifle off a crate.

As they reached the outer rim of the barracks, he broke off from the crowd, instead sliding into step with the on-duty soldiers making to secure the fence line perimeter. He danced a military two-step, shifting from squad to squad until he found a group headed for the main gates. So many soldiers, assault rifles trained at the ready. Not so much as a rat could have slipped out of that fort without a bullet lodged squarely in the back of its skull. But, within, a dragon could have whirled around without notice. He tugged his cap lower, recognizing the spiky blond hair jutting out underneath a battle-helmet, and the dangerous clear-cutting blue eyes of Master Sergeant Sting Eucliffe.

He passed by as Sting hustled toward the center of the commotion, to the man calling the shots. All it took was a military uniform, a little know-how of Fiori Army procedures, and a modicum of pure chaos to become invisible inside the storm of people. The most dangerous part, Gray knew and loathed, was Natsu Dragneel. The man he had trained. It took a lot to counter-think himself, making sure to twist his actions away from his comfortable norm. And, what made Natsu really dangerous. Even with all the training, the guy was unpredictable. Gray swore roughly under his breath.

Damn, the guy was unpredictable. He stood at the foot entrance of camp in his sleek black secret service suit. His sunglasses shown with the snarling sun overhead, just as his fiery pink hair stood boldly. He blocked the entrance, his arms crossed firmly over his muscular chest.

Gray glanced out of the corners of his eyes, keeping time with the soldiers to either side of him. The nearest squad was at least five yards away. If he broke out of formation to jump into their crowd, Natsu would see him in a second. But, if he kept moving, it would only be seconds before he marched face-to-face with him. Gray's mind reeled.

The overlay of the fort he had memorized beforehand played out in his head. He spun around in his mind, looking one way for a hiding spot, only to spin a one-eighty and desperately search back the way he came. And all the while, he was walking straight toward Natsu. Hell, he could probably see Gray if he knew which cap to look under.

Break free, caught in 3.2 seconds.

Stay in formation, caught in 34 seconds.

Draw attention to himself, caught in 6.4 seconds.

Diversion, unknown.

He tucked his tongue into his cheek, dropping the assault rifle to hang from a strap around his shoulder as he moved. It was going to take a lot. Everything could go wrong very quickly. It didn't really take that. Even if one thing went off, that'd be checkmate. Game over. But it was his only way out. Burying his hand into the side pocket of his pack behind him, he fished out two long thin canisters. If the soldier behind him looked down, it would all be over. But, he passed one of the canisters to his left hand, tucking them near his stomach.

No reaction from behind. However, he was sure not to miss what Gray was to do next. He had to move without hesitation as soon as he threw them. His thumbs slid through the metal rings at the canisters' throats. His left, he threw ahead, the right he tossed off to the side. And as he pivoted on the ball of his foot, his face turned. Fiery green emerald eyes locked onto him.

For a sudden second, the world froze.

The soldiers stopped in step, the steady crunching sound of military boots upon dry dirt ceased. Time stopped. And they stared at each other. The world took a chill.

Then, the canisters exploded.

* * *

Natsu blinked, he couldn't think. Just for a split second, just for a brief tick of time, he held Gray's icy blue eyes. He opened his mouth to issue orders, but just as the words seemed to creep up his throat, a large explosion of air puffed, filling the air with cloying black smoke. He grit his teeth.

Damn, smoke grenades. Gray was there. Right there. Maybe twenty feet away. He moved, turning, and rushing through the smoke. Like hell he was going to get away so easily. As he ran, he issued orders through his com, pulling his team to the foot entrance. They'd box him in. There really wasn't anywhere to go.

"He's wearing standard fatigues," Natsu rattled into his com, pushing past the lead ranks of soldiers. He shoved each aside, cursing as he stumbled. "Clear a path, damn it! Hold your positions!" He would not slip through Natsu's fingers. Not again. This chaos was going to end.

He tripped over a particularly stupid soldier's boot, sending him flying into the dirt. He snarled, pushing himself off the ground. Where was he? Where was he? He spun in place, coughing, nearly choking, as he tried to take deep breaths through the cloying black smoke. He whipped back and forth. Where the hell was he?

"Sir," it was Rogue's calm and slick voice that snapped in his ear. "We've got him, West side of the foot entrance."

Natsu whipped around, 180, bee-lining for the fence. "Hold your fire! We take him alive, hold your fire."

Natsu breached the smoke wall, black air sliding around him, pulling off his sleek black suit like a demon birthed of shadow and flame. Taking a breath, he couldn't help the triumphant grin that came over his lips. He jogged over to his troops in the alley between two barracks, weapons shouldered and trained on Gray nearly pressed against the fence. But, his eyes narrowed as Gray shifted to stare at him.

His jaw knotted. Damn it, Captain. What happened to you? "Captain Gray Fullbuster, you are under arrest for the murder of Secretary of War Siegrain Fernandez. Stand down. Drop your weapon." He shook his head, biting back the sadness in his chest. "It's over."

The look Gray gave him, in those cold blue eyes, drilled through him. He stared at him, his commanding officer, his trainer, the man who saved his life, and his friend. Gray shook his head. He slowly crouched, drawing the strap of the assault rifle from around his shoulder. He held his palms up toward them, his fingers splayed far apart as he brought the rifle to the ground.

Where had he gone wrong? Natsu stood a few feet back, looking down at Gray. What had gone so wrong, to do this to you, Gray? He was nearly on his knees when he looked up suddenly at Natsu, his eyes sharp and frigid. He barked, "get down!"

Luckily, the years under Gray's command had left something inside of him responsive to the captain's orders. He dropped to a knee just as the wall of the barrack beside him exploded. Wood shattered out in a crazed cacophony, raining down over them. The blast echoed like a thunderclap in the small alley between buildings. The debris landed hard over his back, slamming him down onto all fours in the dirt. Splintered wood fell crumbling to the ground all around. Natsu reached out his hand, yelling, "secure him, secure him!"

But, a small shining metal canister rolled out from where Gray stayed, bent over. It exploded with the ringing shock of a thundering chorus. The blast deafened him. He jammed his palms over his ears just as the blinding light scorched his eyes. Drilling his eyes shut, he doubled over, blind and deaf. The world spun with the damage to his eardrums, vertigo grabbing at his stomach. The bile raised into the back of his mouth, threatening to come up.

By the time he managed to open his eyes again, gritting his teeth hard, Natsu blinked. Everything was a sheet of overwhelming uniform white. His eyes watered. He kept blinking, trying to clear them. Damn it. Gods fucking damn it. By the time his vision came back, there was nothing but his team and the debris of a destroyed building around them.

"Sir," Natsu squinted his eyes as a hand touched his shoulder. He stared up at the face, his eyes running rivers of tears. Blond hair underneath a combat helmet. Sting. His mouth moved but all Natsu could hear was a whining high pitch squealing in his head.

When Natsu shook his head, not understanding, Sting pointed to the fence. It had been blasted apart. Metal fangs curled back from the force of an explosion. It had thrown the fence in two, picking it up from underneath and hurtling it into the sky. The remaining fence bowed to the weight, bending in toward them all around. Shutting his eyes, Natsu shook his head, dry swallowing past the scratching dusty cloud of wood pulp and fiberglass.

Sting dug his hands into Natsu's shoulders, whipping him back and forth as he shook. Natsu growled. Though he felt the fury raising in his chest, rumbling in his throat, he couldn't hear a sound underneath that piercing high pitch whine. He glared at the fence line, shaking his head. Though he couldn't hear his voice, he ordered, "it's a diversion. He's still here somewhere." He wouldn't have escaped on foot. No way he would have gotten far.

Natsu blinked slowly, standing to his full height. Swiping his palms down his pant legs, he patted off the thick layer of dust that had clung to him. Not on foot. "A truck," Natsu got out, but just as he did, he saw it.

He couldn't hear what was sure a crash filled with whining metal, but he felt the vibration through the ground. He jerked, turning just in time to see a jeep barrel through the fences. Its thick military tires trounced over the metal fence the grill had upended. Like a roaring beast, the jeeps tires dug into the ground, flinging clouds of dust behind as it sped out over the fence and out into the desert.

Sting grabbed his shoulder again, but Natsu just shook his head. A sigh escaped his lips. Just then, a torn and ragged piece of white paper drifted past his cheek, falling listlessly from the explosion's force. He snatched at it.

 _An explosion for an explosion._

Natsu rolled his jaw. Turning the paper over in his hand, he saw the remnants of the classified seal at its top. The Fiori olive branches had been singed black with the explosion's wrath, scorching the white paper.

Bastard. Not only did he set the whole thing up – he wanted to be caught – Gray had snatched one of the classified papers from around the Secretary of War's body. That meant he had slipped right under his men's noses. In and out. Gray played him.

He stuffed the paper into his pocket as a reminder. But, he looked up to the horizon where a cloud of dust trailed behind the spinning tires of a military jeep. Natsu rolled his tongue over his bleeding lip, shaking his head. The corner of his lips bent a little. Well done, Captain. Well done.

* * *

Gray whipped his head back and forth. His ears still rung, even with the cloth he had jammed in them. Concussion grenades, Gray thought, sighing. Hated them. Just couldn't stop the ringing for hours.

The wind whipped through his hair, sending his raven locks waving with the desert air as it rushed past the open-topped jeep. Turning the steering wheel, he guided the vehicle over a sand dune. Glancing back at the tower of smoke rising from the horizon in his rearview, he grinned before jamming his boot into the accelerator and sped across the barren desert.

* * *

 **Next Chapter: Nightmares**


	4. Nightmares

**Chapter 4: Nightmares**

 _"ETA ten minutes."_

 _"Final equipment check. Make sure you are not going in there just to scratch your ass."_

 _Gray leaned his head back against the cool metal hull behind him. The quiet thrum and beat of the dampened chopper blades vibrated down the VRX Raptor's belly. As the almost silent raptor sped across the mountainside, its metal landers just skimming the jagged rocks, the five-man Fairy Tail team cut like an assassin's blade in the night underneath the steady eye of CAPCOM's radar defenses. They sat bathed in the everglow of the low green hum of night lights, each wrapped up in their own pre-combat rituals. Gray, for his part as the captain, the CO of the Fairy Tail squad, sat alone from the group, his eyes closed, drifting. One would be hard pressed to believe he was in a special ops helicopter speeding over the horizon with the shock of a bullet. He leaned peacefully, nearly asleep, his cheek nuzzeled against the side of his long barreld customized sniper._

 _Lyon, as was his way, attempted to make up for the nearly carefree CO brother of his by issuing orders every minute or so. Gray mumbled sleepily against his rifle while Lyon ran through the mission briefing for the thirtieth time. Natsu disassembled his side arm, extracting hinge upon locking spring, then snapping the pistol back into form again in a few seconds. Del fiddled with some gizmo that blinked with small red LED's under the soft green glow._

 _"Captain."_

 _"Hmmm?" Gray's icy blue eyes were dampened into black mirrors under the night light as they slowly split open. He eyed the freshest and youngest recruit of the team. Underneath violet hair, his wide vibrant childish eyes danced with his excitement._

 _"I just wanted to thank you again for having faith in me."_

 _Gray scanned over the young boy in front of him, barely nineteen, his hands shaking with the slightest of tremors – though of trepidation or excitement, he couldn't tell. This was his first ops, let alone his first field deployment. "Relax, Romeo. It's not about faith. You're the man for the job. You wouldn't be out here otherwise."_

 _"Dropzone in one," the pilot cracked in their COM._

 _Gray grabbed Romeo's shoulder, offering him a smile. "Your nation, Fairy Tail, then yourself."_

 _"Captain," the young boy nodded, his lips spread wide with a beaming smile._

 _"Natsu's your point. You stick by his side."_

 _The back of the chopper split open like a hinged egg, the floor dropping to the to a few feet above the ground. Natsu led the squad, dropping out and hitting the ground on a knee. Following his lead, the rest broke their fall, tumbling in a controlled roll as they hit the ground._

 _As soon as his boots were under him on solid ground, Gray's sleepy devil-may-care attitude snapped into a cool frost. Frigid sapphires scanned their surroundings as the raptor climbed into the night. Soon all was silent, as quick motions of his hand had the squad falling into formation. Like deathly cats, they silently stalked through the trees, the crumbling leaves and crunching snow underneath did little to betray their ghostly presence._

 _Nearing the edge of the treeline, concrete cut into the icy mountainside spired overhead, dark, ominous, and cold. Gray looked to Natsu marking forty. Just as the pink haired soldier who had to be covered in black camo paint nodded, Gray fetched a long jagged spike free from his belt. Swinging his rifle over a shoulder, Gray clamped similar spikes onto his boots before swiftly climbing straight up the tallest ancient barky redwood along the forest's edge. He didn't have to look, as he settled along a steady branch near the redwood's peak, to know Lyon his brother and brother in arms was right next to him scouting out their entry points._

 _When Lyon patted his shoulder, two quick taps, Gray flicked on his mic twice, not uttering a word before cutting the line silent again. Underneath, three shadows split from the treeline, dashing as panthers at full sprint across the open tundra before slamming their backs against the cold concrete fortress. Above their heads, Gray watched with a finger steady along the trigger's side as patrol crossed the top of the wall._

 _Del slinked out, running a thin line from his pocket to the keypad at the thick steel plated entrance door. In ten seconds, the door had popped open, and Captain Fullbuster watched the three man splinter-team slip inside._

 _He waited twenty counts. And as the last beat clicked, he took down the far eastern watchtower guard first. Silent puffs emanated from his rifle, each whisper sounding as another form fell. In a matter of thirty seconds all twelve of the patrol along the upper-outer rim were drifting off into the endless slumber. Snow fell, clinging to the bodies as Gray descended the tree. Together, the brothers with ice in their veins sprinted across the clearing and slid into the door Romeo had left ajar behind._

 _Once inside, he popped on his COM, "progress."_

 _"Sector four. Two minutes to target."_

 _"You are go. Stay frosty." Gray glanced to Lyon at his side and nodded. Quietly, they raced, shoulder to shoulder, checking every corner as they passed with silenced mp5's at the ready. Following the schematic they had drawn from MAG-Intel, they found their way through the labyrinth inside the fortress and popped out the top to a frigid arctic wind that had picked up. It bit at the exposed skin underneath Gray's mask, but the pain and irritation of it were far below the surface._

 _Over the now barren walls they sprinted. Clinging tight to the shadows, Gray and Lyon vaulted over lifeless bodies, running unperturbed and eerily unmolested for such a secure fortress._

 _"At the door."_

 _"Hold." Gray winced as a blast of static exploded in his ear. Beside him, Lyon's face dropped ghostly white – even for him – and they shared a brief look before redoubling their speed. "Hold. Red 1, respond." Gray held his ear, jamming the earpiece in tighter and willing the COM to come back online. "Red 1, can you hear me?"_

 _An ear-piercing air-raid siren sounded, whining high and filling the deserted fortress with a chillingly screeching metallic voice. Sliding his feet out under him, Gray angled himself, skidding to a halt near the east tower. Below, doors shot open in the courtyard. Gray cursed under his breath as hundreds of soldiers rushed out into the open._

 _Concrete exploded around him as the clacking of automatic rounds split the air. As the virgin white snow fell over their heads, thousands of bullets glinted, a rapid thunderstorm. Gripping a hard hook on Lyon's shoulder, Gray yanked him, throwing him flat on his back. The wood beams supporting the watchtower's roof splintered as bullets tore at the wooden flesh._

 _Drawing a latch at his feet, Gray tugged the door to the tower open and threw Lyon down the opening. Twisting his rifle around his shoulder, Gray fell onto his belly next to the open door and with his eye locked on the sight, his finger upon trigger rained death back down upon the courtyard. Though no matter how many dropped, another was quick to take his place._

 _Gods-damned Litherans, Gray thought as he yanked an empty clip out of his rifle. They don't care about their own gods-damned lives. Jamming another clip from his vest into his rifle, Gray's blood ran even colder as soldier after soldier he felled. Red blood soaked the white courtyard. After the second clip ran empty, Gray shook his head. Hell. Hooking his foot back on the hatch's ladder and slid back down into the fortress._

 _As his boots met the floor, a hand wrapped around his forearm. Though when he wheeled around, a combat knife fished free from his belt, Gray froze as he met Lyon's eyes. "Gotten a hold of the others?"_

 _Lyon shook his head._

 _Just then, Gray's earpiece sparked again._

 _"Captain – Captain Fullbuster can you read me?"_

 _"Del?"_

 _"Heh, good to hear your voice, Captain. They used some sort of damn EMP trigger. Luckily the damn bastard didn't think to back up the pinch with a co-"_

 _"Del, what's the situation?" Gray glared at Lyon who just rolled his eyes back._

 _"Well I was getting to that. Me and the boys here are pinned down in the east corridor. Been flanked by – hold on," rapid click-clacking of assault rifle bullets squeezed out a muzzle in Gray's ear. "Yeah! Take that you friggin foreign ass bastard! Learn to speak an actual language, fucker!"_

 _"Del! Give the damn mic to Natsu!"_

 _"Sir."_

 _"Can you shoot that idiot for me?"_

 _"'Nuther time, Captain."_

 _"What's the situation?"_

 _"Bad." An static explosion blasted in Gray's ear. Natsu grunted. "Real bad. Gunna need a gods-damned miracle to get outta this one." There was a brief silent pause before Natsu spoke again. This time his voice dropped lower. "Sorry we let you down, Captain."_

 _"Hold tight, Red 1."_

 _"Sir?"_

 _"One miracle, coming up so don't you go quitting on me."_

 _A short laugh shot in Gray's ear. "You might be able to get out of here. Don't worry about us."_

 _"That's a negative, Red 1." Gray said as coolly as ever, his voice steady and even as he started moving with Lyon at his back down an empty corridor under the tower. "I told you when you joined Fairy Tail. We don't leave anyone behind."_

 _"Sir."_

 _"So don't go dying on me. I don't feel like carrying your heavy-ass corpse on my back out of here."_

 _"Yessir."_

 _"What's the plan?" Lyon whispered, moving quickly with Gray, following his movements as if they were one._

 _"Don't have one."_

 _"Great."_

 _"Let's just get eyes on them, first. Then, we'll figure something out."_

 _And that's just what they did. Laying down flat on a beam jutting out from the floor above, Gray and Lyon were as perched hawks over the firefight. The ceiling had been blasted open allowing them a clear view of the situation at hand, and, Natsu had been right. It was real bad. About two hundred soldiers were split on either side of the three-man group, pinning them into a shallow alcove in the middle of the corridor. The team had barricaded themselves with overturned tables and statues that had once stood on concrete pedestals, decorating the corridor._

 _"So, now what's the plan?"_

 _"How many floors are below them?"_

 _"One blueprint said two, another said four."_

 _"Broken bones or dead."_

 _"You aren't thinking . . ."_

 _"Pray for two." Gray shifted, tugging the signal flares that were meant for the EVAC from the small of his back. "Red 1, we are in position for overwatch. You will proceed exactly as I order. Knowing Del, he's got at least ten pounds of plastique down his pants. Get it from him and get him to kill the lights on my go."_

 _"You think this is going to work?" Lyon whispered, making sure to have his mic off first._

 _"Only option."_

 _"What's our EVAC plan?"_

 _The corners of Gray's lips winged up, a small frightening light danced in his eyes that sent shivers down Lyon's spine._

 _"All set, Captain."_

 _"On my go, kill the lights. Wait five seconds then toss the C-4 into the hallway. After it explodes you are to jump in."_

 _"Sir?"_

 _"Three. Two."_

 _"Yessir."_

 _"Go."_

 _Like a flick of a switch, Del's hacks sent the corridor to Bedlam. Everything went black. Flicking one flare spiraling through the air, Gray counted silently in his head, mentally tracking the flare as it fell blindly in the corridor. Squeezing his trigger, the bullet split the end of the unseen flare. Green liquid fire spewed in the black, eliciting hundreds of flying bullets. After two seconds, the firing stopped, and in the wake of confusion the explosion of the C-4 rippled the air. The fortress groaned and shook as the floor was torn apart, ripped like wet paper by the wrath of the explosive._

 _As the wave of force rippled through the concrete, Gray elbowed Lyon in the side and they both dropped from their perch. With combat knives drawn, they quietly slit the throats of the two soldiers they fell on. Back to back, they readied their guns. Woofs of muzzled gunshots escaped their sub-machines guns, spraying like spewing needles in a fan around them. Once the last of the soldiers fell to the ground in the darkness, Gray elbowed Lyon's side again and they both dropped._

 _As the lights flickers back to life, they lay in pools of blood, the only life, melded with the lifeless. Gray had slid underneath a dead Litheran's arm, sidling under the lifeless corpse. And he stared at the hollowed empty eyes, calming his breathing as a cacophony erupted across the corridor. A stampede of boots rushed toward them, but stopped near where the alcove had been. The explosion had ripped a hole in the floor a couple men wide and the outraged soldiers across the corridor exploded in curses and rage at seeing their slain comrades._

 _Gray and Lyon just stayed silently, waiting as time crawled. The soldiers spoke rapid fire in some quick and frantic language they couldn't understand. But finally, a single excited command rang out and the boots retreated._

 _Waiting another few seconds after the last boot-fall was heard, Gray and Lyon rose as spectres, drenched in blood from the desecrated graveyard. They moved to the hole in the floor, offered each other one glance, before flipping around, grabbing the edge and then falling into the dark abyss below._

Gray jerked up in his bed, his knuckles white as they gripped the cheap white motel sheets. His chest pounded, his breaths ragged. Sweat glistened on his brow. Reaching up to swipe it off, Gray swore he could still feel the thick lines of falling blood trailing down his face. But when he pulled his hand down, shaking in the early morning, there was no stain of blood.

Swinging his legs out over the squeaky bed frame, Gray hooked his elbows on his knees. His head hung low as the ghosts of the night continued to play out in his head. That night had changed everything.

 _Country. Fairy Tail. Self._

Gods, he was such an idiot.

The country betrayed. Fairy Tail destroyed. The self left hollow.

Squad, first, Gray thought. Before country. His squad-mates, his comrades deserved his all before the country that had turned its back on them. Standing on shaky legs, he pushed himself up and teetered toward the patio. Sliding the crappy door on rusted wheels, he stepped out onto the balcony, rotting wood overhanging the stories below. Gripping the wood railing tightly, Gray let out a breath and stared up at the stars twinkling overhead.

* * *

"Well, Dragneel, would you like to explain to me how one of the world's most dangerous men who you are in charge of stopping walked on to my military base this morning and killed the President's chief of staff? The gods-damned Secretary of War?"

"Sir, here is a video of him entering. He assumed a different identity, his codes checked out."

"He walked in the damned front gate?" General Acknog leaned heavily on his desk, his massive hulking frame nearly crumbling the military issued furniture. "Who was on security?"

"Sir, with all due respect, there was no way for the soldier to know. All his credentials were legitimate."

"Who was it?"

Natsu hesitated. The wrath of the General was legendary in all the armed forces. The young boy was going to end up bleeding in a ditch before the real punishment began. "Sir, as I said –"

"The name, Dragneel."

"Warrant Officer, Rori Crane."

Acknog scribbled on a paper, before running his massive fingers back through his short-cropped fiery blue hair. "Now you want to explain to me how you let this happen?"

"Sir, Captain Gray Fullbuster is the best. We trained him. I served under him. He knows how we move, and he can outthink us in a split-second decision. That's always been his strength. And it's the reason why no one was able to capture him while he was special ops."

"Are you making excuses?"

"No sir, we will get him."

"Hmph. You better." His demonic black eyes locked onto Natsu's. "one more head rolls, yours will be next. You can be assured of that, boy."

"Yes sir." Natsu closed the door behind him, before rubbing at his tired eyes. Gods, he genuinely hated the General. He treated men as pawns, worthless. As long as he achieved victory as the commander, safe in the rear lines, then it didn't matter how many of his soldiers lay still on the battlefield.

Absently, he rubbed his fingers along the crumpled paper in his pocket. Natsu had spent the entire day going through the Captain's footsteps, following from the front gate to his sniping perch near the target practice range. And the entire time, he couldn't help but just drift along with his memories of the man. Serving with him, under him, putting his life in Captain Fullbuster's hands. He trusted those hands, that mind. A helluvalot more than he trusted the General. Yet, here he was.

Gray was gone, and he was alone in the military camp, standing where Siegrain's body had fallen. Fishing the paper out of his pocket, Natsu scanned over the Gray's message, then over the other side.

It was the mystery he still couldn't figure out.

The Captain had never missed – at least not to Natsu's knowledge. When he pulled the trigger on his rifle, his target was hit every time.

So why then did the first shot miss Siegrain?

The only conclusion Natsu could come up with throughout the entire day of investigating Gray's tracks was that he didn't miss. Gray didn't miss.

Which meant, before Siegrain, his target was the football. But why? What was the point in breaking the briefcase that held the key codes to the Etherion satellite? Natsu held out the classified top-secret paper, biting his lip.

 _What the hell are you up to, Gray?_

* * *

 **Next Chapter: Clockwork**


	5. Clockwork

*****This story is rated M for graphic violence*****

 **Chapter 5: Clockwork**

"There are two ways to disappear from view." Gray held up two fingers, smiling at the young and energetic pink-haired Warrant Officer Dragneel. "One," the captain counted, "is to blend into the shadows, becoming the dark. If they can't see you, they can't defend against you. You blend, you hide among the masses in the uniform of the enemy, with the mannerisms of those you'd kill."

Natsu nodded along. "Of course. And the second?"

The corner of Gray's mouth winged up, his eyes dancing. "You bring all the attention to yourself."

Frowning, Natsu scanned his commanding officer's amused face. "You disappear from view . . . by drawing attention to yourself."

"That's right."

"How?"

Gray's brows bumped as he grinned.

* * *

"Shhh." Gray whispered, pushing down the plunger at the back of the syringe in his hand. The young, muscular security guard fell limp in his arms with the immediate effects of the tranquilizer. "Damn, man," Gray muttered as he shrugged the unconscious guard's jacket over his soldiers. "Do you eat the iron at the gym?" Gods, he was swimming in the clothes. Looking down at the now almost entirely naked buff hulk, his white spiked hair splayed out on the floor matching the stark white boxer briefs clinging to his massive thighs.

Clipping on the nametag, Gray frowned, looking at himself in the mirror. What the hell type of name was Elfman anyway? He tugged the grey cap down tight over his eyes and nodded as a buzzer sounded in the guard shack behind him. Stepping over the unconscious behemoth on the floor, Gray tagged the intercom.

"Aegis deliveries."

"Hey, boys." Gray drawled with a slight southern twang on his tongue. "You right on time. I'll just go on and buzz ya through. One sec here. Ahh what's the damn button. This one? No." As he fumbled over the simple control panel that only had a single switch, Gray scanned the truck from underneath the rim of his cap. "Hmmm, ahhh look, there she is! Here ya go, have a goodnight, boys!"

Gray heard the chuckling, saw the shake of the driver's head as the reflective barricade bar rose, pivoting into the sky. Slipping out of the guard shack, it took him three bounding steps before he managed a handhold on the back of the truck trailer. With the rattle of the truck's railing as the thick tires bounced over a pothole, Gray tapped his wrist and with a light beep, his clock's countdown began.

By the time the truck had made it to the second security checkpoint, Gray had shimmied down the speeding truck, pressing himself tight against the undercarriage of the trailer. Hooking his knees up over the main metal frame, he melted into shadows of the trailer.

Five minutes, two more security checkpoints, and a parked truck later, Gray rolled out from underneath the trailer shooting out behind a moving pick-up truck. In a crouched run, he kept apace with the slowly moving truck, cloaking himself from the security cameras roaming back and forth in the delivery bay of the Nakatomishina Tower. He followed it, praying for the driver not to look in his mirror. The truck stopped, causing Gray to jerk and freeze in the driver's blind spot.

"I need to see some I.D."

"Oh for the love of . . . damn it, Todd, it's us. You know I dropped my card. We were just through here. You've known us for going on twenty years now for Pete's sake! Open the gods-damned door!"

"Sorry, sir. Protocol. And hurry up, almost change of shift."

Gray spun around the trucks tailgate, taking in a breath and pulled at his oversized uniform as he stood. The utilitarianly bland and grey uniform tugged straight around his lean, compact svelte frame. With a glance at his watch, Gray stepped up to the guard. He layed a palm on his shoulder with a friendly smile. "I'm your replacement, Todd. You're off."

"Sweet. Got a batch of sugar-glazed waiting for me back in the fridge." He shifted his considerable jiggling belly that pulled his grey shirt taut. And with a smack sending wavelets underneath the fabric and a jovial smile, he waddled off.

"You aint gunna give us I.D. shit too are ya?"

"Hell," Gray pursed his lips to the side, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Is protocol and all that." But, he shrugged. "Eh, who the fuck cares 'bout some blow holes' rules from upstairs, right?"

"Damn straight!"

Tugging at the door release, Gray watched as the sheet metal coiled into the ceiling. The truck passed through while the door recoiled on its agonizingly slow trip back down. He slipped in behind the truck's bumper while the door continued its slow fall behind him. Gray tugged on his shirt again, righted himself, and took in a breath as he checked his watch again.

Not bad.

* * *

Leaning against the control panel, Natsu stood as command between a team of military geeks, their eyes locked on scrolling computer screens. His eyes burned as he flicked from screen to screen on the wall of security displays. It was like looking at a fly's eye, nearly a hundred screens recording the events of the eighty floors of the Nakatomishina Tower, image feeds flipping every few seconds between thousands of rotating high resolution cameras. Gods his eyes were killing him. But if anyone could spot the spectre of Fairy Tail, it was Natsu Dragneel. Despite the fact that he had a full team on intel, running through the images, he knew that if he did not spot the captain, no one would.

Hell, Natsu scratched at his spiky pink hair. He didn't even know if Attorney General Felmann was Captain Fullbuster's target for sure that night. But, he knew the list, thanks to Del's leaks. And as far as importance went, Felmann was next in line after Secretary Siegrain. Though, as he scanned through millions of faces – most in some sort of staff uniform with covered eyes – he had to admit that he didn't even know what made these particular people of importance to the captain.

Most, Natsu knew, were high up in military intelligence, such as Secretary of War, Siegrain. But some, like the Attorney General, were civil servants. They didn't have to do with the war.

For the millionth time, as he switched from screen to screen trying to catch a ghost with a fishing net, he asked himself, _what the hell are you doing, Gray?_

* * *

In the gentlemen's elegant, cherry enameled restroom on the sixtieth floor, Gray locked himself into a stall. Flipping over his wrist, Gray pursed his lips. The freight elevator with the art being sent to the gallery on the fifty-eighth had taken forty-three seconds longer than Gray had anticipated. Slipping out of the giant grey guard uniform, Gray righted his obsidian black suit jacket. He fiddled with the thin black tie running down over a prim-pressed white dress-shirt. Then he drew a black ear-piece from his pocket and pressed it into his ear.

Rolling up the grey uniform, he stuffed it behind the toilet's jeweled ceramic tank. Stepping out of the stall, he went from blue-collar minimum wage staff to a prestiged cut and tailored suit.

Twisting the crystal faucet, he let the icy water trail between his fingers before slicking back his raven hair. Righting himself in the mirror, he nodded resolutely, with a strong-lined jaw and set icy blue sapphire eyes. Glancing down to his shoes, he scowled at the dull scuffed guard shoes. There was always something to give him away. And he knew, it could be his undoing. Something as small as the wrong cufflinks could be his undoing among these high-rollers. Let alone his scuffed fifty dollar shoes.

Though, he had to take what he could. While the personal bodyguard he had disposed of, sleeping like a baby in the restroom stall had a suit that fit perfectly, his shoes had been ridiculously small. Thinking about it now, Gray smirked as he thought about the hulking behemoth security guard, Elfman. For a guy his size, the shoes he wore were but a child's. He should just count his blessings that the giant had the feet of a human.

Slicking back a stray raven lock, Gray set his face as stone and seamlessly transitioned into the multi-millionaires mingling in the ballroom. Sliding on nimble feet, he slipped through the room, shouldering past politicians, side-stepping foreign duchesses. And with a slight smirk, he slid in-line with the five other bodyguards in tailored suits, forming a phalanx around the Attorney General. He filled in the hole at the security's rear and followed them on their way.

* * *

Natsu sighed, squeezing the corners of his eyes. Swigging back a cup of coffee he had been offered by a soldier drone, Natsu scrubbed his rough palm over his eyes as the bitter brown piss-blend slid down his throat. The captain, Natsu thought idly, would have disapproved. He hated coffee. Hated caffeine. Made you jittery, unable to think clearly when the time came.

But, how else was he to function? He felt as if he could take all the stimulants in the world and he still couldn't match the quick cunning of Captain Fullbuster. He scanned over the squad of bodyguards surrounding Felmann. And he scratched over the three-day scruff down his cheeks and over his chin. Natsu tapped his chin, running the tip of his thumb slowly along his bottom lip.

"Have the advanced team check-in."

"Sir, the next scheduled check-in is in four minutes."

"I didn't ask for the next scheduled."

"Sir."

Natsu blinked, slamming his palms down on the edge of the camera control panel. Three of the screens burned pure white. All images of the Attorney General and his bodyguards blinked away. "What the hell happened to my feed!?" Natsu cursed. "Get the eagle to the panic room now!"

* * *

The three bolted door hissed shut behind Gray as he filled into the small circular room. The panic room, he thought, looked something in between a personal library and a quiet pricey lounge, with its rich dark amber wood paneling and overstuffed antique black leather chairs. Gray glanced to the security cameras in all four corners. Two more, he thought were hidden as small as pinpricks within the binding of two large books within the plethora of knowledge ferreted away to be the sole treasure of a few elite hands.

There was nothing to be done about them. No way around them.

Glancing to his watch again, Gray started a mental timer at three minutes. Slipping two silenced pistols from his jacket, five quick woofs rang out. Around him, a circle of men crumbled, tranquilizer darts sticking out of their hides like prized beasts at the zoo. "Don't move." Dropping one of the pistols, he fished inside his jacket to pull out a matted black M9, holding it to the back of the Attorney General's skull. "I can assure you that this one isn't filled with tranqs."

Gray slid around his target to look him straight in the eyes and he motioned toward the chair between them. "Please, sit. We need to have a little chat."

Ever the politician, Felmann tugged his suit jacket straight and returned Gray's burning icy eyes with a smug black stare. "Gray Fullbuster, right? They assured me that you wouldn't reach me."

"Clearly, they were wrong."

"So it seems." He held up his palms, sighing. "Such is life with the incapable. So what is it I can do for you?"

"You can tell me why the Attorney General of the Fiori Republic was called by Secretary Siegrain on the night of the Bolinian Fortress operation."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you are referring to."

"My mistake." Gray said coolly, the fire in his eyes draining to a dangerous calm blue icy field. "Let me speak in a language you understand then." Dropping the sidearm, he pulled the trigger and watched Felmann's eyes shoot wide as the bullet dug into his thigh. He screamed. Gray readjusted the barrel of the gun to point straight between his eyes. "That might help refresh your memory. Operation Under Wire, Bolinian Fortress, Litheran territory, arctic rim. Five-man dragon squad sent for intel retrieval. What was the actual mission?"

"That's classified."

"Not for me. I went in there. My boys went straight into the center of Litheran Intelligence with thousands of guns trained on us. There was no intel retrieval."

"The classified mission you are referring to," the Attorney General hissed between clamped teeth, "failed."

"No it didn't," Gray's eyes narrowed. "Now you might want to start telling me the truth, because I'm getting a little frustrated. And when I get frustrated," another woof popped out of the M9's barrel and blood spurted out of Felmann's good leg. "See, my finger gets all twitchy." Gray shook his head. "We were told our mission was to steal an encryption algorithm, but what was the true mission? Why was the Attorney General involved? Why were we sent in?"

"Classified," Felmann replied, his black eyes boiling with pain and rage. He globbed up and spit, hitting Gray on the cheek. "You're nothing but a tool – a dog under whip and leash by its masters. How dare you turn your teeth on the ones who feed you, mutt. I'm not telling you shit."

Swiping the spit free from his face, Gray sighed, flicking his free hand in the air. "Thank you. So this goes higher than I thought." He smirked. "I may be a dog, but you, Felmann are a weasel. And here you are with a gun trained on you and you hold on to loyalty. You? What a farce. No," Gray smiled a hollowed grin, "it means you fear someone even more than me. Thank you, Felmann. This dog can put the puzzle together from here."

"You're not going to make it out of here alive."

"Hmm," Gray flipped over his wrist. Twenty-six seconds. "I'm afraid you have that backwards." Squeezing the trigger, the Attorney General went limp, his body sliding down lifeless in the plush leather a brass chair. Two rivers of blood ran down from his forehead, past his empty eyes.

* * *

"Hell. Fucking hell!" Natsu smashed his fist on the control panel. "Who's fucking idea was a room that locked down and couldn't be opened for three minutes!? Gods-fucking-damn it!" He had watched as Gray crept out of the shadows. He had watched, helpless, as the bodyguards fell. And he had watched, unable to do anything, as his charge was shot. Murder, it seemed, wasn't Gray's only goal. There was something more. What did he say? Why was there no mic in that room?

He watched as the final bullet went between the Attorney General's eyes. Keying his COM, Natsu barked, "twenty seconds, that door opens, you take him down. Weapons free."

On screen, he met his captain's eyes. They looked at each other as sure as they were face to face. Natsu frowned as Gray tucked two fingers inside his shirt collar and jerked up. That signal. Watch your back. Then, the camera went black.

The hell that erupted, it swallowed them whole. Just as the cameras went out in the panic room, the COM lines to his soldiers at the door chirped off. Natsu just ran his fingers over his eyes. What could he do?

His men were incapacitated in a matter of seconds after the door opened. Natsu just shook his head. The man just disappeared again.

But then he saw him. He jerked forward, pointing at a camera screen. "There, what is that? Thirty-second floor, west wing, black suit." Gods, how the hell did he get so far down so fast? And, Natsu scowled. On screen, Gray held his arms out wide, turning slowly in a circle. It was as if he wanted Natsu to see him. "I'm going in," Natsu grabbed the sidearm out of its holster under his jacket. "Fall in on the thirty-second, west-wing. Black suit. Capture and detain. Keep me eyes on him!"

* * *

Gray smiled, turning one more time in place. He swiped back his fingers through his raven hair and glanced to the three men shouldering through the gathered crowd toward him. "Let's play ball." Gray pivoted and darted down a near stairwell.

* * *

"Sir, he's in the south-west stairwell. Heading to thirty-first."

"Eyes?"

"Locked on."

"Keep them on him, don't let him disappear. We lose him, he's gone." Natsu pitched, throwing himself in a new direction and continued his headlong sprint.

"Sir, four cameras just went out."

"Still have him?" Natsu burst into the stairwell on the fiftieth floor.

"Yes sir. The affected areas are nowhere near him."

Natsu raced down the stairwell, his shoes clacking on the stairs. "Captain!" He yelled down the stairwell.

"Left the stairs on the twenty-ninth. Sir, eight more screens are out."

"Just keep eyes on him, damn it!" Natsu hurled himself down the stairs, his feet flying.

"North-east stairs."

"Post men on all exits." Natsu crashed through a door on the fortieth floor, dashed through the gathered festivity crowd and plunged into the far stairwell. "I'm in the North-east stairs."

"Twenty-third floor. Shit, the camera on him just went out."

"What!?"

"No, there he is. South-eastern edge of twenty-third, just went into the restroom."

"I'm on it." Twisting over the rail, Natsu fell two floors, his knees jarring as he impacted with solid ground. Again and again, he vaulted over the rail. "Shit," Natsu slammed through the door onto the twenty-third. His legs buzzed, but he continued his run, slamming through the people unlucky enough to get caught in his path. "Still in there?"

"Yes sir."

Probably thought to lose us then wait out the confusion, Natsu thought as he burst into the restroom. With his pistol at the ready, he began with the nearest stall, the instep of his foot breaking the lock and slamming the door open. Nothing.

Nothing.

Natsu readied himself, bracing as he kicked in the next door.

A businessman screamed, flailing his arms around, covering himself, twisting on the toilet.

Natsu shook his head, but set himself, clenching his teeth, outside the final stall. Raising his foot, he slammed the door open. On the closed toilet lid was a neatly folded obsidian black suit. Holding his temples, Natsu shook his head. "Damn it, Captain." Picking up the jacket, a small metal recorder clanged as it fell to the floor.

* * *

Gray glanced at his watch. He bounced up and down in the passenger seat of the Aegis delivery semi-truck he had hitched a ride in on.

"Got plans tonight? Hot date?" The delivery driver gave him a crooked smile with the two teeth left in his mouth as they passed the last security clearance.

Gray smirked, tugging the tan delivery cap off his head. And he looked at the Nakatomishina Tower in the passenger side mirror as it shrunk behind him.

The second way to disappear was to draw all attention to yourself, Gray thought as he smiled and the truck roared onto urban streets.

* * *

 **Next Chapter: Red Snow**

A/N: I couldn't help myself when writing the escape in this chapter. Hope there are fans of Crown here. Not quite a businessman in a bowler hat, but Gray took a page out of his playbook. Hey sinner-man? ;)

-Oblivion


	6. Red Snow

**Chapter 6: Red Snow**

 _ **"Clearly, they were wrong."**_

 _ **"So it seems. Such is life with the incapable. So what is it I can do for you?"**_

Natsu sucked in a breath, kicking his heels up on his desk. He leaned back on the hotel room's solid wood backed chair. Closing his eyes, Special Agent First Lieutenant Dragneel listened for the twentieth time as the recorded voices rasped like ghosts upon strings.

 _ **"You can tell me why the Attorney General of the Fiori Republic was called by Secretary Siegrain on the night of the Bolinian Fortress operation."**_

Bolinian Fortress? Ceredel?

 _ **"I'm afraid I don't know what you are referring to."**_

 _ **"My mistake. Let me speak in a language you understand then."**_

Natsu listened as the first of the gunshots he had seen, sparked. As the sound blasted over the room's ambient noise, he replayed in his mind the scene he had lived through: watching on the video camera screens as they captured his charge being interrogated and eventually killed in the panic room designed to keep him safe.

 _ **"That might help refresh your memory. Operation Under Wire, Bolinian Fortress, Litheran territory, arctic rim. Five-man dragon squad sent for intel retrieval. What was the actual mission?"**_

 _ **"That's classified."**_

 _ **"Not for me. I went in there. My boys went straight into the center of Litheran Intelligence with thousands of guns trained on us. There was no intel retrieval."**_

 _ **"The classified mission you are referring to, failed."**_

 _ **"No it didn't. Now you might want to start telling me the truth, because I'm getting a little frustrated. And when I get frustrated, see, my finger gets all twitchy. We were told our mission was to steal an encryption algorithm, but what was the true mission? Why was the Attorney General involved? Why were we sent in?"**_

Natsu teetered on the back legs of the wooden hotel room chair. In his fingers, his combat knife twirled, flipping knuckle over knuckle. The flat steel was cool on his burning hot skin as it wove spun.

 _ **"Classified. You're nothing but a tool – a dog under whip and leash by its masters. How dare you turn your teeth on the ones who feed you, mutt. I'm not telling you shit."**_

Behind his closed eyelids, Natsu could see the glob of spit strike his captain's face. Bad move. His lips twitched a little though they fell under a heavy scowl. His captain? Did he still think of Captain Gray Fullbuster as _his_ captain?

 _ **"Thank you. So this goes higher than I thought. I may be a dog, but you, Felmann, are a weasel. And here you are with a gun trained on you and you hold on to loyalty. You? What a farce. No, it means you fear someone even more than me. Thank you, Felmann. This dog can put the puzzle together from here."**_

 _ **"You're not going to make it out of here alive."**_

The recording clipped off and Natsu rocked back onto all four legs. Gray? Captain? Natsu winced, clawing a hand over his chest. "Damn it!" He slammed his fist down, nearly buckling the wooden desk. Atop it, the remnants of his failed stress reliever – his sidearm dissembled – jumped into the air. Springs fell, rolling off the table. The locking mechanism fell, wedging underneath the tin slatted wastebasket at his feet.

Gray had shown him that stress reliever. Disassembling then reassembling your firearm as fast as possible – timing yourself – focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else. But not matter how many times he tried, he just couldn't get his mind free and his chest lightened. His world had changed when Captain Fullbuster went AWOL.

Hell, he hadn't even said a word to Natsu! One minute, they were in Ceredel, the next he was waking up in a hospital bed back in Magnolia. He'd taken Lyon and Del with him when he went. Why did he leave Natsu behind?

"What the hell?" Natsu dropped his forehead to the ochre leather rimmed desk, his chest constricting further. He could barely breath. Is that what he wanted? Is that why he couldn't sleep? Did he want to be by Gray's side – was that where he belonged?

 _Why, Gray?_

His phone's calendar alarm beeped causing Natsu to groan. He sure as hell didn't belong where he was going. Pushing himself up from the desk jerkily, Natsu rolled his neck slowly. He'd had about four hours of sleep in the last seventy-two. That on top of the physical shock of bowling and vaulting stairs, throwing himself through crowds of people . . . and the weight on his chest – Natsu could barely move, let alone face the top brass.

He still wore the crumpled suit he had worn during the N-Tower op. Scrounging around the floor, he found the pieces to his Colt, and slid the sidearm back together without a single thought. Staring at the silver recorder and the crumpled paper on the desk, Natsu slid the Colt into the black holster at his side.

Picking up the paper, Natsu scanned over the short-hand writing of his Captain. He shook his head. No, no matter what, Gray Fullbuster would be his Captain. He . . . believed in Gray. And Captain Fullbuster was after something. Something he didn't know about.

Watch your back. That's what the captain had signaled to Natsu. But, Natsu crumpled the top secret paper in his fist, clenching his teeth. "Who am I watching out for, gods damn it! You're my enemy now, Captain!" Swallowing, Natsu blinked away the watery walls gaining purchase in his fiery emerald eyes.

Crouching underneath the bed, Natsu slid a nearly invisible pin out from the bed frame's leg. A tiny sheeted compartment popped free from the seemingly solid oak. Slipping the recorder and paper into the well, Natsu closed the hide-away, letting the wooden leg be whole again.

By the time he reached Fort Hayward, Natsu had an icy chill rolling down his spine. He'd been tailed all the way from the hotel. It was a chain of cars – a coincidence, of course – but one would turn just as another took its place maintaining a constant five care-length breadth between themselves and Natsu's bumper.

Just something a little off about each car. The tinted windows. The license plates. The way each of the five cars maintained that distance, even when there were no cars between – letting the traffic merge, sliding into the gap. One driver, sure. But five?

Natsu rolled his jaw, cleaning his black shades on his shirt as he watched the military guards' movements out of the corner of his eye. Maybe these spy games were getting to him, Natsu decided as he walked toward the SITROOM. Planning and trying to out-think Captain Fullbuster had left him seeing ghosts in every corner. Eyes watching, fingers trained on triggers.

Though, as he walked through the thick-plated nuclear-fallout door and felt the eyes upon him from the shadows, the chill down his back remained. Rolling his stiff neck, Natsu squared his shoulders and proceeded just the same.

As the doors closed at his back, that grasping icy feeling wasn't for nothing. Overhead lights kicked on and Natsu squinted up at a man in a sleek black suit, his midnight blue hair shining as he sat at the crescent table's head.

* * *

" _Captain?"_

" _Quiet." Gray pressed himself against the body he had fallen on. He spread his arms out, flattening himself against the hard body in the shadows. The C-4 had blasted the ground for two floors, and the fall had nearly broken his body, but he couldn't think about that now._

 _Overhead, Litheran voices shouted, lights streamed back and forth. Gray, his entire body frigid as sharp ice, looked into the eyes below him. In the darkness he couldn't make out the wild fiery green he knew was staring back, but he saw the power still as he looked into those glinting eyes in the black. Their faces were inches apart as Gray flattened himself further on top of his soldier. He felt the hot breaths, shallow upon his face, nearly felt the small tremble of Natsu's lips, just as he felt the search lights spanning above him._

 _They stayed like that for three gut-checking minutes. Footsteps clanged down hallways, the thuds echoing across the empty concrete. In a honeycomb the footfalls echoed all around them, surrounding them in a nearly silent cacophony._

 _Finally, when he felt the last light fade into darkness, Gray slid off of his fiery squadmate. His fingers trailed, patting Natsu's sharp jaw. Quietly, he motioned for his team to move. And as ghosts underneath the fortress they fell in line._

 _In a small rounded chamber, under what Gray was hoping in his disoriented state was the northeast corner of the fortress, the Fairy Tail squad crumbled. Lyon slid the chamber door closed, and in the small space, labored breathing broke free._

 _"Status?" Gray ordered._

 _The team softly sounded off. And it seemed their knack for making the impossible possible was in full force again. Every member of the Fairy Tail squad had jumped through that hole, fell floors, and were none worse for it._

 _"Captain," Romeo said, checking his rifle in his hands. "What do we do now?"_

 _"Catch our breaths."_

 _"No, I mean. The mission. We can't possibly."_

 _"Just catch your breath." Gray glanced at his brother near the door who gave a quick subtle shake of his head back. His eyes were cold and grave._

 _After five minutes, Gray stood, shouldering the strap of his long matted custom sniper rifle. "We are aborting Operation Under Wire."_

 _"Sir," Natsu stood up. "We are just going to turn tail?"_

 _"We are leaving."_

 _"But, Sir, I know that our chances are one in a million, but this is Fairy Tail! This squad's known for its miracles. I mean, look. We shouldn't even be alive now! Let's keep going," Natsu held up his rifle by the throat for emphasis, "we've got fight left in us. We aren't just the kind of squad that runs when the going gets tough. You've always taught us to be able to squeeze success out of overwhelming odds. Defeat is not an option."_

 _"Natsu, as long as you live to breath another day, you will not be defeated. Defeat only happens when you give up. We aren't doing that. We are not giving up. We are going to fight through hell to get out of here. And we'll get another shot."_

 _"Sir, you never take a second shot."_

 _"If you're dead, none of it matters. Now, we are leaving." Gray pushed past Lyon who put a hand on his shoulder as he opened the chamber door._

 _Spectres in the night, the five-man squad slinked underneath the bustling fortress. Thousands of Litherans on alert were hunting after them, but Gray lead them cool and calmly, never once letting the pressure in his skull show on his face._

 _They dropped into the sewer lines with quiet plops. Gray held up a fist, pressing himself against the curved sewer walls. Above them, light shown through a grating in the ceiling. Boots thudded past. Then stopped._

 _Captain Fullbuster watched from the darkness, counting the soldiers as they passed, then returned. He held out his hand, his fingers splayed, before counting down silently from five. As his fist balled again, and the last boot thudded against the metal grating, the team cut forward._

 _At the sewer's end, Gray stared for a few passing seconds at the metal grating and the snowy tundra outside. The bitter wind whipped with a high, sharp whine. Fishing his knife flatly between the concrete wall and the metal grating, he pushed his full weight into the hilt, jarring the rusted grating creaking open._

 _Out in the open, the squad fell into a loose formation. They distanced themselves from each other in a star-pattern. While they moved, fighting against the mountain's wicked wind, the two in the rear swept their sights back and forth, walking backwards through the crunching snow._

 _"EVAC in half a click." Gray looked over his shoulder and scanned the fortress walls. Dropping to a knee, he flipped his rifle into his hands and looked down its long scope. "Double time. Go. Go. Go." The squad broke into a run, sprinting past him as he remained crouched in the snow. Hidden behind a bluff, he watched the guard towers. He watched the soldiers running across the wall. Search lights strobed on the glistening snow, splintering light into columns of yellow brilliance._

 _As Lyon passed, Gray pivoted, throwing his rifle back over his shoulder and caught up to the rear of their formation. They broke into the clearing._

 _Gray blinked, sweeping from side to side. He spun around._

 _"Gray, where the hell's the Raptor?"_

 _"Captain, the chopper was supposed to put down on this blind side of the mountain."_

 _"Gray."_

 _"Captain."_

 _"Fullbu-"_

 _Gray turned as sharp click-clacking of tracing bullets rained from the tree line._

* * *

Rubbing at his pained eyes, Gray wrapped his arms around his tented knees. The thin bed covers had long since been crumpled and thrown to the shoddy motel floor. He breathed hard, feeling the icy fist unrelenting on his twisting stomach.

He held out his hand, watching as how it shook, before climbing out of bed.

* * *

 **Next Chapter: F.R.S. Leviathan**


	7. FRS Leaviathan

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

 *****WARNING: This is an M rated story with violence.*****

A/N: Placing this at the end of the chapter didn't seem right due to pacing, but I wanted it to be said. Sonar is more than a recon tool deployed by the world's militaries. It's a weapon. And it kills the marine life indiscriminately in their home. If you want to learn more, please research the impact of naval sonar on wildlife.

The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth. The more we kill it, the more we chip away at our own headstones.

* * *

 **Chapter 7: F.R.S Leviathan**

" _Your first priority is Fairy Tail."_

" _Sir." Natsu saluted, staring hard with passionate fiery eyes as he addressed his newest CO for the first time. He'd heard stories, seen first hand the amazing Fairy Tail squad in action. In all honesty, it felt like he was standing before a hero more than his captain. He still couldn't believe it was_ _ **the**_ _Captain Gray Fullbuster speaking to him now._

" _We do not leave anyone behind. We are family, you are a part of us starting today. From now on you will have four people who will go through hell with you, never once looking back to check that you have their back. Just as you will never need to look for support. We are there. If one of us falls, he will not lie away from his home."_

" _Sir." A shiver ran down the young, fresh Lieutenant Dragneel. He couldn't help the smile that spread his lips._

" _Welcome to Fairy Tail, Natsu."_

" _Sir!"_

* * *

Special Agent Dragneel sighed heavily. He leaned on the guard rail bordering the walkway just outside the bridge of the F.R.S Leviathan, the flagship of the Fiori Naval Forces. His knuckles rimmed white as he gripped the metal rail. The massive battleship swayed slightly in the large ocean swells. Natsu looked out over the expanse of blue, as far as the eyes could see, drowning into the horizon. Flat.

The world was flat.

 _Special Agent Dragneel, please have a seat._

 _Natsu froze, his eyes shooting wide before he could shove it back down behind his trained stoic expression. At the head of the crescent table towering over him, wrapping side to side, like gods staring down upon their lowly subject, Secretary of War Siegrain Fernandez tugged at his sleek black obsidian suit._

" _Sir? How?"_

 _Siegrain ran his tongue over his teeth, his eyes shining under the harsh overhead fluorescent lights as if they were lit by the heavenly starry bodies above. And yet, somehow, the room felt so dark to Natsu. So many shadows. It put his back on edge._

" _Secretary Siegrain."_

" _Natsu Dragneel, I will hear your report on the past three instances of the terrorist attacks by Gray Fullbuster."_

" _Sir," Natsu straightened his spine still. His temples throbbed. "The first instance of our attempt to stop Cap –"_

 _Siegrain held up a palm, his eyes harsh stone. "This man is no captain, Special Agent Dragneel."_

" _Do you see what I'm saying, Siegrain?" An older man, with long trailing white hair interrupted. Natsu flicked his gaze to the man who he could not identify despite the fact that over his hunched form, he wore the clean black uniform of the Admirals Court. Natsu made careful note of the man, down to the strange metal Z that had been slashed over the Admiral's ranking insignia._

 _Holding up his hand, Secretary Siegrain slid his cold eyes to the man, calmly and deathly quietly ordering, "silence."_

 _Though the older admiral muttered, "he cannot be trusted."_

 _Out from the shadows, Natsu saw the shine of crimson blood red hair shift behind the Secretary of War's shoulder. Erza Scarlet – The Titania. Dragneel couldn't help swallowing hard. The woman sent chills down his battle-hardened and military-stiffened spine._

 _Siegrain slid his snake eyes back to Natsu, slowly sliding his fingers together. He leaned on his elbows, looking over his interwoven fingers and down upon the pink haired soldier. "Continue your report, Special Agent Dragneel."_

Natsu's world still spun three days later. His head still hurt horribly, like someone was sliding a thin wicked knife into his temple. He had seen Secretary Siegrain die. And yet his ghost was there to haunt from the shadows. That meeting had left him scraped even rawer. Ever since the Fallen Tower failure, eyes had been upon him. He could feel them watching from every corner. The meeting with, what Natsu realized now was the secret intelligence council – GHOST – had left the special agent on uncertain ground.

People, Natsu knew, didn't just meet with the GHOST council. People didn't get pulled in just to deliver a repeated report of what he had already submitted officially. GHOST was a legend over the Fiori military branches. So many incredulous stories surrounded them, that Natsu had not even believed them to have existed. But now, he felt cold.

Something bad was coming. Natsu looked up to the sky, his tan skin feeling the salty lick of the ocean's kiss, but more than that, the stripping chill over the spanning dark grey clouds overhead. It filled the air with a heavy energy. On top of that sinking feeling, Natsu had Captain Fullbuster to deal with.

His earpiece buzzed. "Sir, everything is normal."

"Affirmative, keep alert." Natsu sighed, popping off his COM.

 _Watch your back_.

Captain? How could he watch his back when he didn't even know who the enemy was?

His fiery eyes closed as the first frigid raindrop of the tempest kissed his cheek.

* * *

Even through the thick layer of the wetsuit and the full-head diving helmet, the water was bitter cold as it rushed past Gray. It was utterly black, six hundred feet below the ocean's shell. He couldn't see a thing outside of the foot radius illuminated by the extra-strength lights on the compact PDM. The small diving motor spun rapidly, its jet churning the water in front of his face, sending him in a cocoon of bubbles and turbulence as he cut through the black water.

The wide-range radar clicked, a small red light appearing on the screen's edge. Phase one. Gray swallowed, angling the diving motor to pull him deeper still into the bowls of the earth. The red dot loomed over the left half of the radar screen.

And then he heard it.

 _Shit._

The thought raced through his head as he kicked the diving motor past its max speed. A metallic clang rang like a deep moan through the water's breadth. A split-second later, a wall of water crashed into him. Like an explosion, it ripped at him, pummeling with a thunderstriking-fist against his chest. His body felt like it nearly crumbled as he spun end over end.

Immediately, a slicing migraine raked through his skull, splitting behind his eyes as he tried to right himself and angle for the subterranean shelf. Around him, wild squeaking squeals pierced through the water. Gray tossed side-to-side as a full pod of frantic dolphins rushed through the water.

They squeaked, terrified, in a complete panic. A particularly distressed bottlenose slammed into his side, nearly crushing him in two. He choked, coughing hoarsely into the helium-laced diving air pumping into his helmet. It felt like a trucked rolled over him as the dolphin thrashed.

His vision flickered.

Gray's head lolled. But even though the water churned, he moved through a thick cloud splaying out into the water's grace. Gray managed to glance at the fleeing dolphin to see the trail of murky smoke pouring from beside its head. Not smoke, Gray realized.

Blood.

Groaning, his vision fading black, Gray pushed the motor to dive underneath a shelf overhang. Nearly unconscious, he reached out, grabbing a hold of the smooth rocky underside of the shelf and strong-armed himself into its conclave. Just as he passed the wall, another metallic click thrummed, and the air shot out of his lungs as a large fist slammed into his back, splitting his insides.

Blood rose in his mask, trailing up from his beaten lungs. Bending in half, he pulled himself down into a hole in the rock before his vision flashed.

A frantic beeping trilled inside Gray's helmet. He groaned, his eyes slitting open. The head's up displays flashed in his helmet. A warning light screamed red.

Though, he didn't need it to see the crack splintering down in front of his eyes. He shook his head slowly trying to bring a single thought back past the dull pain lancing through his broken body. A loud clang rang and the world quaked around him.

Damn, Gray thought, watching the dust shake free into the water. The shelf was splintering, falling apart under the sound's wrath. He'd barely made it. That one was practically on top of him. How long had he been knocked out?

He whipped his foggy head. Gripping the rock face, Gray slid his way up to the shelf's surface. And immediately saw the wide cutting metal edge of the Leviathan's bow. Sliding back into the safety the shelf offered, Gray leaned his helmeted head back against the slimy rock.

Two more rounds and the Leviathan would be directly overhead, Gray gauged. Another metal clang shrieked and the world around him thundered. Gray cringed as his faceplate splintered further. The crack ran down in front of his eyes, stretching over the tip of his nose.

He still wasn't quite sure if this plan would work. The sonar was even worse than he realized. He never could have imagined what it would feel like to be hit by that wall of water moving with the sound's ping. And that was at a distance. This close, if he were in the open, the wave of the sonar would rip him apart. His helmet would definitely not make it, but that didn't really matter because the explosion of it hitting would collapse his chest.

He'd picked this spot to make his approach because of the underwater shelf. It left the Leviathan's belly two hundred feet above his head. Two hundred feet in thirty seconds.

He swallowed. Another ping sounded and another earthquake wracked his cave. Shooting out from the shelf, he grabbed his PDM, kicking it into overdrive. Speeding like a rocket through the churning water, Gray flew up toward the surface. As he shot toward the surface, he steadily blew air out of his lungs.

Twenty seconds.

The head's up ticked down. 150 feet.

Not going to make it.

Ten Seconds.

Not going to make it.

Gray didn't even think as he tore his underwater special ops rifle off the side of the Personal Diving Motor's engine. He fell back into the water, letting go of the motor's handles and watched it speed away.

Five seconds.

Seventy feet below the water's surface, with his diving motor shooting off away from him, Gray shouldered his rifle. He locked onto the array, towed by a thick line behind the Leviathan's end. He spun in the water as two puffs pushed out from the barrel.

Two seconds.

Gray somersaulted in place, flipping head over feet, his rifle tearing free from his grip and drifting off into the watery depths. Gray managed to right himself, flinging his arms out into the water, just in time to see the two large caliber slugs tear through the connecting tow lines of the sonar array.

Taking in a deep breath, he waited as the array sputtered, but split, falling down into the water's embrace. Rolling his jaw, Gray arrowed to the ocean's surface. Breaching it, Gray snapped open a pocket and fished out two electromagnet grips. Slipping the grips over the back of his hand, he held out his palms to the speeding metal hull and clicked the buttons. Two hollow thunks connected him to the side of the ship just above the water's whipping edge. His shoulders seared as he was tugged with the battleship's velocity.

Water splattered past him, thrown in a gale's stampede behind cracking whips. Flicking off one electromagnet, his left arm fell to his side. Reaching up over his head, he clicked it back on. For ten minutes, he made the agonizing journey, pulling his shoulders free of their sockets as he climbed hand over hand. But finally, he managed to grasp the hull's edge. Rolling, Gray silently groaned, gasping for breath. His arms were limp and frozen jelly over his chest.

Though he could barely breath, and he felt like drifting off into the tempting embrace of oblivion, he got his feet under him and forced himself standing. Ripping off his mask, he threw it overboard. And cringed as the mid-Atlantic storm's tempest ripped past his face.

He rolled his stone-like shoulders. His long-range rifle was floating somewhere in the depths below. His assault rifle was still strapped to the diving motor, wherever it was speeding now. All he had was his water-proof sidearm.

Gray blinked, reaching down to his side to find a large ripped hole in his wetsuit. Rolling his tongue along the inside of his lip, Gray sighed. Damn jagged underwater sea-shelf.

Well, he felt beaten to a pulp. Could barely breath. His vision kept failing. There was a force-nine storm ripping apart the open deck. And he had no weapons on one of the most heavily armed vessels in the Fiori Navy. He forced himself into a crouch, and fell into the shadows.

Here we go.

* * *

Natsu pinched the bridge of his nose, digging his fingers into the corners of his emerald eyes.

"The storm must have knocked out our tow line to the sonar array."

The hunched white-haired admiral barked orders back at the Con.

Natsu sighed. Yeah, a storm named Captain Gray Fullbuster, Natsu thought disappearing from the bridge. It could have just as easily been the ridiculous storm battering the ship. There was no real reason to suspect Gray. How the hell would someone go about just breaking a ship like the Leviathan's sonar array? But he had no doubt.

"Full team. Status?"

"All clear."

"Clear."

"Clear."

Natsu just shook his head, closing his eyes. "Rogue. What's your status?" Though he already knew. "Everyone converge on Rogue's LKL, I want a full radius on his location. I'm on my way."

* * *

Gray squinted up at the storm, feeling the freezing rain pelting his face. He shrugged the strap of the downed officer's assault rifle over his shoulder. Tucking the sidearm into the strap at his waistline, Gray kneeled over the unconscious man. He held two fingers, pressing them against his neck until he found a steady beat. Standing, he rolled his neck and spun a door handle open.

* * *

"Sir."

Natsu scanned the deck through the whipping downpour. A river trailed past his military boots. He slicked back a wet strand of pink hair matted to his forehead.

"He's fine."

"Get him inside."

"Sir, the door is open. He probably went in that way."

"You're right." Natsu flicked his gaze from corner to corner. If anything, he was sure the captain was nearly an arm's reach away, hidden right in front of his face. Though his face was calm, a commander's vigil, a fire burned in his throat. This had to end here. "Sting, get Rogue inside. Take the squad with you, open every door, search every compartment. Open every gods-damned shoebox until you find him."

"Sir, what about you?"

"I'll be heading back up to the admiral's ready-room. He'll have to get through me if wants through the door."

Sting faltered for a second, a frown falling just noticeably enough with his bright golden brows, to nearly have Natsu snarling before he jumped. "Sir!" Snapping off a salute, he signaled to the rest of the team who fell in behind him.

Cracking his neck, Natsu turned calmly and walked through the tempest's rage with a demure of a garden path stroll. He guided his way around, circling as if on search and recon through the command of the ship.

* * *

Gray smiled softly, tailing his protégé through the Leviathan.

 _Good idea, lieutenant._ _But you've always been a poor liar, you honest fool._

When Natsu turned toward the ready-room, Gray took a detour. As he climbed the cast iron lookout, his wet footsteps were drowned out in the roar of slapping wind. He had to hook his arm through the ladder's rungs to keep from being blown off the post and into the hundred foot plunge below.

As he climbed, he thought of his lieutenant. Of how he'd failed that pink-haired fiery soldier.

 _This is Fairy Tail. We don't leave anyone behind._ "I'm sorry, Natsu." Gray mumbled, climbing rung for rung up the side tower. He left him. It was on his shoulders. He'd left Romeo and Salamander behind on that blood red snowy mountain. Gray had spouted a lot of bullshit back then. Back when he could still feel his heart.

Now those words. Honor, patriotism, valor. They meant nothing.

He wrapped his hand over the watch's mouth, tugging him back down under the small wall. Pinning his limbs down with his knees, Gray watched the panic and fury in his eyes as he flailed. When his eyes rolled back and finally gave up the futile struggle, Gray shifted him, placing him under a small overhang so he wouldn't drown in the sea siren's downpour.

Shouldering the butt of the assault rifle he had pilfered, Gray aimed down the iron sights, free of any targeting assistance. Luckily, Gray thought, this mission did not require proof. This was more about sending a message.

He knew.

The vengeance was cold icing.

He found his target, his long white hair framing an old wrinkly face underneath the clean press of an admiral. The man hunched over, his upper back bowed out at a painful angle. Peaceful faces held demons of desire. Gray needed no further lesson to feel remorse now. He calmed his breathing.

And as the rain poured, two clacking bursts rang out with bright explosions from the muzzle of the rifle.

* * *

The siren that rang didn't even phase Natsu. Honestly, he'd given up on trying to keep the old man safe. If the captain was after someone, they were going to die. With the afterimages of the GHOST council meeting fresh in his mind, the recorded message from his captain reeling, Natsu felt numb to it all.

Protecting wasn't his mission anyway. Secretary Siegrain had made that clear. His mission was simple. He had one objective: death. And that was all that was left to burn in his eyes as his boot skidded out on the flash flooding deck floor. He vaulted a container that had broken loose from its holdings and slid on the whitewater river.

With his colt ready, Natsu caught the railing on the middle of his sole, jumping to the deck below at full stride. He caught the whisper of a shadow slip behind another container as the ship rocked against the ocean's churning mood. Sliding around the container's corner, he locked down his sight. "Captain Fullbuster!" You shouldn't have come to this ship, Captain. There was no escape.

Gray turned and though he stared down the barrel of a gun, he wore a ghost of a smile. "Lieutenant." Wind whipped his raven hair just as nearly frozen rain pelted down upon him.

"It's Special Agent."

"Ah, congratulations then, Salamander."

"Get on your knees, hands on top of your head!"

Gray raised his brows, but did as he was told. There wasn't much point in resisting. At his back was an easy sixty foot drop into storm-raged scarred waters.

Natsu slowly closed the gap between them, holding his gun at the ready, trained on his former captain.

His chest hurt.

The Leviathan groaned, metal stress whining against its namesake's wrath. The ship bowed back and forth as if but a bath toy among a toddler's tantrums.

What happened next.

No body knew.

The ship rocked suddenly, pitched sideways by a massive wave. The flashflood ripped Natsu's feet free from the floor.

Gray lunged.

A gunshot sparked.

Blood flew.

Two soldiers fell over the side of the F.R.S. Leviathan to be swallowed whole by the merciless sea.

* * *

 **Next Chapter: Desolation**


	8. Desolation

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

 *****WARNING: This is an M rated story for graphic violence – strong language – and feels. Only for mature audiences!*****

A/N: Bad news, the wait between chapters is something that I can't say won't be happening again. Good news, I'm on my second run-through of my first novel with a planned release online via Barnes and Noble (online), Amazon books, and Google books in 2016! My primary focus is on my writing to be published, which I am winding up on by taking a structured work-day to write every day. My first novel is part 1 in a series of a murder mystery not about murder and a gay romance not about being gay. I'll release more information soon. Until then, enjoy this chapter

-Oblivion

* * *

 **Chapter 8: Desolation**

 _Blood._

 _The winter wonderland was bathed in it._

 _Its virgin purity was taken in an instant, scarred, and stained with the life of the Fairy Tail squad members. As Gray turned, the world slowed for a beat of a heart to fill a day. He watched as thick red plasma splattered into the air around him. It was eerily silent; nature and sound had abandoned them on the snowbound clearing. Before Gray could issue a single order, an armor piercing round caught him in the side, ripping with feral velocity through his body._

 _He recoiled, thrown back with the momentum of the merry glinting bullets, two rounds slamming into the padding of the armor vest over his chest. Breath stamping out of his lungs as he hit the hard, cold, unforgiving ground, Gray watched wide-eyed as his comrades fell. First Lyon took a hit in the shoulder; his rifle dropped helpless out of his lifeless arm. Then, Natsu buckled to the ground, blood fountaining into the air from his quad. It fell down, washing over him as he lay on the ground. Beside him, Romeo shuddered, a slug ripping through the bullet proof armor, punching a hole through his stomach._

 _His eyes shot wide, clutching below his sternum._

 _Gray grit his teeth, slamming his hand into the snow and forcing himself back up on unsteady legs. He shot out an arm, catching Romeo at the lower back before he could fall into a cold grave. And he scanned the treeline, hundreds of soldiers trained on them._

 _It was over._

 _Gray clutched at his side. Blood ran over his knuckles._

 _All of it._

 _Fairy Tail was gone._

 _His friends._

 _His soldiers._

 _It was the end._

 _Next to Gray, Del shouldered his weapon, clacking off round after round. His eyes shown with delight. Blood poured down from holes all over his body. Human Swiss cheese. But, he was still standing. He was the only one really standing. He smiled, laughing with a wide mouth and booming chest._

 _Gray blinked, looking back at the world around. Was this how it ended? All control, all skill, everything he had ever done, was it all to be for naught there in that chaos. Was this what they sowed? How many lives had he taken? Was this inevitable?_

 _Earth rained down on him, frozen dirt slamming down over his head, earth-born hail. Del's shoulders bounced as he laughed, his delighted smile shown under demonic crazed eyes. His left hand trailed to his belt where he tugged free another hand grenade just as his right continued to send back volley upon volley of replying, death-seeking bullets._

 _Gray glanced down to his side, the world tilting. Thick red life poured through his fingers as cracks upon a dam. So warm._

 _He blinked._

 _And he bared his teeth in a snarl, cold eyes burning with terrifying blue flames. He wasn't dead yet. Grabbing the rifle Romeo still clung to, Gray squeezed the trigger over the young boy's hand, joining the chaos with an answer of his own._

 _Another explosion rocked the world. It nearly bucked Gray off his feet, nearly ripped Romeo free from his grasp. Black smoke rocketed into the air, large chunks of earth falling back to the ground. His ears popped._

 _"Yeaaaahhhh! Take that you fuckers!" Del sneered, his excitement bubbling over, pure joy shining out of his black, soulless eyes._

 _Time returned its unmolested, steady march._

 _Digging his heels into the ground, he slowly trudged, tugging the dead-weight of Romeo's heavy limp body with him. Dropping the rifle, he took Natsu's collar in a raven's claw. He grunted, yanking Natsu on his back across the fresh white snow. Blood poured out from his side with each movement, but he looked up fiercely, blue flames belonging to Pandemonium danced. Lyon had managed back to his feet, aiming down his rifle in his left hand and joining the cacophony._

 _Del had managed to summon a wall of billowing black smoke. He laughed hysterically, shoulders bouncing in his madness. "One boom, one dead. Two booms, you fuck get a nade up the ass! Three booms," his head lolled, bouncing back and forth, "oops, what happened to you, fuck-nut!? Lost your head. Oh, never mind! I see it, don't worry. Awww," he randomly swung the muzzle of his large machine gun back and forth, spraying mayhem upon the trees. A trail of bullets worked their way out of his pack, feeding endlessly into the side of the giant gun. "Your head made a gods-damned hole in one! Congrats, fuck-head!"_

 _"Lyon, Del!" Gray barked, "get the hell out of there! Pull back to the trees behind!" Veins popped in his neck, straining with each jerk, tugging the two lifeless bodies of his subordinates with him. Lyon double-timed it, backwards, as he kept up a steady stream of counter-fire. "Del, get out of there!"_

 _"Like hell!" Del laughed, the corner of his mouth crooking up. "This is where all the fun is!"_

 _"Fucking manic." Gray's jaw knotted. "Gods-damn it, Del, we need your damn explosives!"_

 _At that, Del turned, a childish grin on his face. "You wanna make more boom-boom?"_

 _"Yes, I want to make gods-damned boom-boom!" Gray cursed, his throat going red as he yelled over the insane bedlam, hundreds of clacking guns spitting death over the snow. Damn, Natsu, you heavy-ass, flame-brain idiot. He grunted, tripping backward over a tree root that had pierced the earth's frozen shell. Romeo rolled off to the side while Natsu fell at his feet._

 _"Gray!"_

 _Lyon dropped his rifle into the snow, forsaking it to take Natsu's arm over his good shoulder. Gray turned, picking up Romeo again. Del continued to laugh a fresh insanity behind them as they pushed deeper into the thicker woods._

 _Finally, when he couldn't last anymore, Gray stumbled, falling hard against an ancient thick-skinned tree. He left a thick bloodied handprint upon the bark as his chest heaved._

 _"Gray."_

 _Turning, Gray slid down the tree with it at his back. He winced as the sharp brown bark bit at his skin, cutting him even rawer. "Del, use everything you've got left. Start a fire!"_

 _Frowning, Del crossed his arms over his chest. "My toys go boom. Fire's are no fun. Waste."_

 _"Start a gods-dammed fire, Del!"_

 _"Waste, waste, waste, waste!" He laughed the sweet laugh of an innocent child._

 _"Burn it all down, Del! Burn it all to the ground! Destroy it all!"_

 _Del blinked, his mouth dropping open. But then his wide grinned returned two-fold. "You want me to destroy everything!?"_

 _"Del, burn the world down!"_

 _"Well, why didn't you just say so!" Del laughed, setting about the trees around them with explosives from his pack._

 _Gray turned his head to look into Romeo's face. Lifeless. All the color, all the young energy, was utterly gone from his eyes. He looked like a broken doll, his eyes hollow. With his arm around him, Gray tugged him into a rough hug._

 _Blood pooled in the snow around them._

 _His vision flickered._

* * *

Gray groaned. His body felt almost as shredded as those days. His eyes slitted, the world around so dark. Slowly, his hand trailed to his side, grazing over his skin where his wetsuit had been cut clear, over a coiling knot cut deep into him. How long had it been? The scar remained, and now, just under it, a fresh puncture poured a small river of blood over his cut obliques. The nightmare didn't end.

It never ended.

"Captain."

Smiling hollowly, Gray swallowed past a dry, cracked throat. Salt stung at him incessantly, leaving him bitterly numb to the world around. "Salamander?" Grunting, the raven haired rogue soldier winced as he pushed himself upright.

"Don't."

Natsu's fingers were hot on his sides as he lent his former commanding officer support. Gray couldn't really feel the touch. But he could feel the heat. It was something he had noticed about Natsu Dragneel back when he had picked him for the Fairy Tail Dragon Squad. In fact it had been the reason. Gray's head fell a little, wet, matted raven hair falling over his cold eyes. The ray of light in the nightmare. There was something about Salamander. No matter what hell they went through, that guy always was full of life.

Always.

Except for when the nightmare started.

Taking in a breath, Gray looked up, scanning over the pink-haired special agent – his polished look disheveled – suit torn and decimated by the ocean's embrace. A crooked grin fell over Gray's lips as he turned to stare out of the small sea cave's mouth to the ravaging storm beyond. Lightning strikes crashed across his solemn icy blue eyes. "You look like hell."

"Speak for yourself, Captain."

"Heh," Gray took in a breath of the frigid storm's salty wake. Rain pelted as a million javelins upon the earth. The seas ravaged. White rapids crashed hard against the jagged rocks jutting out from beyond the cave's small overhang. "Where are we?"

"Who knows." Special Agent Dragneel sighed, leaning his head against the cool rock at his back. His arm hung over his tented knee.

"You dragged me in here?"

"Mmm."

Gray's shoulders bounced, the corners of his mouth winging up. The laughter struck thin wicked blades through his system, but he tilted his head back, laughing to the storm raging sky all the same. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Eh? What the hell are _you_ doing?"

"You curse at your commanding officer?"

"You're not -" Natsu sighed. "I'm going to go find some dry wood. We need to cauterize that." He walked slowly out into the tempest.

Gray glanced down to his side again, the blood trailing in rivers over his too-white skin. It was this. Since the nightmare began, this was all that was left to leave any proof that he remained alive today. His heart was still beating. His blood still pumped through his veins. When Natsu returned, not a word was spoken as he went about fixing a standard campfire. As the fire sparked, Gray quietly watched the flames reflect in those wayward sage eyes.

The pink-haired special agent slipped a knife out of his belt. He held it out over the fire, silent as the red flames licked over the cool steel. "Alright," Natsu stood, holding out the molten cherry-red blade. "Here," he offered a thick stick to his old commander – a man who caused Natsu's chest to hurt just by thinking about him.

Gray flicked his gaze to the blade before taking the thick branch Natsu had wrapped in layers of stark white gauze. "Why are you doing this?"

"'Because you are going to bleed to death."

"And?" Gray shifted against the rock wall. "Should I point out the contradiction of a man who sets an explosive trap for me," Captain Fullbuster held up a finger. Adding another, "and shot me. Then drags me out of a storm where I would have died, already cleaned out my gunshot wound while I was unconscious, and is now going to stop me from bleeding?"

"Shut up, and bite down on the damn stick."

Gray smirked, fitting the thick gauze between his teeth. He bit down on the bandage padding, hard. And as the molten red knife's flat blade met his skin, filling the air with the sick cloying stench of burning flesh, Gray hissed, clamping down hard, splitting the wood between his canines. His eyes screwed shut. The branch fell from his mouth, dropping onto his lap as Gray panted for breath. Cold sweat poured over his brow.

"Ahh," Gray gasped for breath. "Maybe you're – ahhh - just a sadist and wanted to do that."

"Would you just stop?" Natsu sighed, flinging his still glowing knife into the loamy ground, burying it up to the handle.

"Heh," Gray took in a long breath, groaning at the pain washing in crashing waves from his side. "What's the point if I do? You should have killed me already, so do it if you don't want to hear me talk. By the way, you are going to get hypothermia if you don't get out of those clothes. You're soaked."

"Damn it," Natsu grit his teeth, slamming his fist into the earth. "It's all just a game for you, isn't it? All of this?"

"Hmm," Gray's head thunked back against the rock. "It is a game."

"How could you do this to Fiori, killing people? Terrorism?" Natsu's gaze flicked off, "how could you do this to _me_?"

"You know, staying in those clothes to spite me isn't going to gain you anything."

"You think you're so gods-damn cool." Natsu's hand curled into a fist in the dirt. "No one in the world matters to you, do they? You just throw them all away. You kill your teammates, the people who you said were more important to you than your own damn life! Everything you are doing, it's all . . . all you're doing is spitting on Romeo's grave!"

Gray's cold eyes snapped to Natsu, losing all trace of amusement. In an instant, Gray clicked back into the form of dangerous military commander of a lethal special ops squad.

"You didn't care about him, about any of us at all! It was all just a lie!"

Gray stood up at the mouth of the cave, turning, frigid toward the pink haired special agent. And coolly, he spoke under dangerous icy eyes, "you better watch your step, soldier."

"Oh, don't you act like you care now. It's too late for that! So what was it? Were we all expendable to you? Did Romeo's life not even matter?"

Captain Fullbuster took Natsu's collar in his good hand, strong arming him up. His fist balled in the cloth.

Natsu smirked. "Going to kill me too, Captain?"

Gray's grasp lightened, only to take the back over Natsu's jacket collar and rip it off his shoulders. It landed with a wet thump on the dirt next to the cracking fire, which spit in protest at the water that flew from the ladened fabric. "I told you to take off your clothes before you go hypo. If you are so eager to throw your life away then run back to your military and be a pawn." Dropping Natsu back down to the ground, Gray shook his head. "You were right when you said this was all a game, but it's not my game. Go back and choose what side of the chessboard you want to fall on, Salamander, but don't lecture me. You have no idea."

"I have no idea," Natsu spat. "I have no idea? I was there, Captain? Don't you remember that? I was there, too! I almost died on that mission, too! I was there, when Romeo died! I almost died! That's my job! And that was your damn job! I knew what I was signing up for just like you did when you enlisted. I'm the same as you, but I didn't surrender to madness!"

"The same as me?" Gray scoffed, and his shoulders shook as a shaky laugh rolled through his system. As he gave voice to it, he threw his head back, swiping his fingers through his wet raven hair, sending rivulets of water glistening through the air. "Same as me? Ahhh, hahahahaha," Gray took his face in his palm, his body quaking with laughter.

The fire inside of Natsu, it squelched when the first tear rolled past his captain's fingers, trailing down his white sharp jaw. He blinked. "Captain?" He asked softly as lightning sparked, thunder crashing just outside in the tempest.

"You really do know nothing."

"Tell me, then!" Natsu stood up, slashing his hand through the air. "Tell me what I don't know!"

Gray's neck rolled as his hand dropped from his face. Tears welled along his icy eyes, pouring down over his face, which tilted to the side. "You think I'm mad?"

Those eyes, Natsu saw in the firelight, were rimmed red. "Tell me why, Captain."

"What's the greatest pain you can feel, Natsu?"

He paused, taken aback suddenly. "The greatest pain?"

"It's a simple question."

Natsu took in a breath, his chest caving in as he watched Gray. "To lose someone precious to you." Natsu's eyes burned.

Gray shook his head, tears continuing to stream from his cold blue eyes. "Wrong. To be the _reason_ that someone precious to you is dead."

"You-you're blaming yourself! Captain, that mission, it wasn't your fault!"

"There wasn't a mission!" Gray barked, his eyes locking onto Natsu. "We were sent to die. Or . . . really, I was sent to die. And you all got caught up in it because of me. I was payment. You were innocent. Now look at Fairy Tail, Natsu."

Scowling, Natsu blinked dumbly. "What are you saying? Payment? What are you talking about? We went in there, together."

With a small chuckle, Gray stared up at the falling sky. "It's all a lie, Natsu. The war. Silent New Year. All of it. We're alone, Natsu. There's no world left for us."

"I don't understand."

Shrugging, Gray flicked his hands out, leaving his palms to the sky. "I don't expect you to. It's all one big twisted web. The more you struggle to do what's right, the more you play into the spiders' hands." Stepping out to the cave mouth's edge, Gray glanced back at his former subordinate. "Do you know why they call the Black Widow a Black Widow? It's because they eat their mates." Gray let out a breath, holding his palm out of the cave's mouth and feeling the cold pelting rain upon his skin. "That's why, Natsu. I've lied in bed with this country. The poison seeping into my veins . . . it will claim me eventually, but before it does I will strike back at those spinners of the web."

"C—aptain . . ."

Gray slid his cold eyes back to Natsu and clenched his fist in the frigid downpour. "Stay your course. If you get too close to me, the venom will kill you as well." Gray turned, walking out of the sea cave's protection.

Natsu jerked, sprinting to the mouth. He watched, in a wall of the sky's wrath, Captain Fullbuster disappear. His fist balled at his side. "You're wrong, Captain. The worst pain is losing someone precious to you while they are still alive."

* * *

 **Next Chapter: Traitor**


	9. Traitor

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

 *****WARNING: This is an M rated story for graphic violence – strong language – and feels. Only for mature audiences!*****

* * *

Chapter 9: Traitor

 _Fire spit into the air from an army of angry creatures' mouths. Sparking with the white brilliance of the sun, flares bathed the snow-burdened tree trunks in a wash of gnawing wrath. The red fury washed over the landscape pocked with hundreds of small explosions which filled the air with raining chunks of frozen earth. The virgin snow gave way to the fiery tempest, melting where the flares embraced the ground._

 _Del's eyes shown with divine glee the red destruction reflecting in his black, black eyes. His babies – pride and joys – marched death across the already barren tundra. Walls of flame climbed skyward, piercing into the sky in towering, writhing infernos. His hands clenched in the air, shaking with absolute excitement. Nothing had ever been so beautiful._

 _On the ground, Gray threw up his palm, sheltering his face from the blistering heat. He still held Romeo's lifeless corpse, hugging him tight to his chest. Natsu leaned as a sack of bricks of dead weight against he side. The mayhem erupting around them had left the Fairy Tail squad in a void. Panting for breath, the captain, leaned his head back against the rough bark of the tree supporting his weight. Black ash rained down upon them, covering them in cloying dust. Gray stayed still, his face tilted somberly to the stars as he was blanketed with the falling dead sky._

 _"Captain," Lyon crouched at Gray's side, shaking him with his good hand. His other lay limp and useless, hanging from a torn and ripped shoulder. Blood soaked his black camo sleeve, rivulets dripping past his torn knuckles. "Gray," Lyon barked when his brother stayed motionless. Crystal blue eyes slowly opened under a black mask. "Gray, we need to get going."_

 _Slowly nodding, Gray sighed, allowing his eyelids to drift closed again. He felt so cold. His head bobbed. Another world was waiting for him. Inviting him. Oh how nice it would feel just to slide into the empty warmth that land offered. His head bobbed again._

 _The world drifted to glass, rolling out far into the horizon. He swayed softly. An encompassing light bathed the flat world, drawing like a mother's soft embrace. It called to him. Lay down you weary head. Rest your tired body. White birds flitted in the clear sky overhead, dancing a colloquy of lovers in the sunlight._

 _And against the blue, he saw Romeo's face, smiling through the light. He still bore the innocence of a child. Gray reached out his hand._

 _But Romeo shook his head slowly._

 _Gray frowned, his shaking hand withdrawing._

 _Romeo nodded, his childish grin spreading his lips as he rubbed the back of his head._

* * *

Jerking upright, Gray's hand balled in the woven cloth of the pathwork blanket covering him. His blue eyes were glazed. His chest thundered. Squeezing his eyes shut, Gray grit his teeth. His shoulders quaked. Crystal tears glinted, falling into the welcoming blanket.

"Gray!" A delicate hand laid on his bare shoulder. "You shouldn't be moving like that."

"Levi?" Confusion dropped over Gray's misty eyes. He swallowed, slowly stuffing his soul back. He buried his heart where it couldn't hurt him anymore. He'd left it there on the frozen, white mountainside. So why did it still hurt so much?

A metallic rattle sounded next to him causing his soldier instincts to jerk. His neck whipped around. A small girl with royal blue hair trailing down nearly to her small knobby knees cocked a brow back over wide brown eyes.

"That's Wendy. She's a friend, Gray."

Like a wounded cat he lay on the bed, sizing her up, though without the strength left in his cold frame to do much more than issue a threatening blue gaze. "You shouldn't have brought someone else."

Wendy sighed, squeezing an iv filled with some dense metallic red liquid. "It was either bring me in or you'd be dead, soldier boy."

"Mmm," Gray laid his head back against the billowy white pillows behind.

"Relax, Gray. Wendy's a good friend. I trust her." Levi sat at the edge of Gray's bed. "I couldn't take care of you by myself, there was too much bleeding. It was her or the hospital."

"If you took me to the hospital, I'd be dead now."

"Don't like the hospital?" Wendy laughed. "Go out killing and getting shot at, burning the world down, and you're scared of hospital whites? I still think he should go in, Lev. Your house hardly has what he needs."

"No hospitals," Gray croaked, his head spinning. The warm, beige ceiling overhead swam with swirling eddies. He shuddered, closing his eyes.

"What happened to him, anyway? He looks like he went a couple rounds with an enraged gorilla and lost."

Levi sighed heavily, rubbing Gray's shoulder under her palm. She shook her head. "I don't know. He never lets me in."

"Stupid boys. Think the whole world rests on their shoulders." Wendy looked down at the way-too-pale military boy. "That was a gunshot."

"I just want to keep him safe. It's like watching a brother throw his life away."

"So why don't you stop him?"

"What could I do? He's got his reasons." Underneath her soothing touch, Gray drifted back into the demons that lurked behind his eyelids. Levi watched him silently. Not once had Gray told her what had led him to this state. A second time, Levi thought. The first time Gray had shown up on her doorstep a couple months back he was a few breaths from kicking the bucket. She ran her fingers gently back through his raven hair, caressing the side of his face. It seemed like he only came to her when he had an express meeting with the reaper. But, she was happy to be there. To be that person. Gray didn't share much, kept everything close to his chest.

It was his way, she knew, of keeping those he loved safe. But it was his actions. Coming back to her, where he showed just how much he trusted Levi.

* * *

 _Gray's eyes opened to find Lyon's blood and ash strewn worried face. The captain's lips bent a little. "You're not pale."_

 _"Like hell," Lyon allowed himself a single laugh. "You know I'm paler than ever underneath this ash."_

 _"Mmm," Gray's head rolled to the side. He lazily scanned their burning, decimated surroundings. His listless sight lingered on his two comrades laying against him. Romeo's eyes had gotten too black. Too empty. Though Natsu breathed, they came in short wheezes, barely sucking in any air. His leg poured profusely, though it washed away with the snowmelt floor. "Alright," Gray groaned, the back of his throat splitting, freeing warm, bitter iron trailing down the back of his tongue. "Take Romeo."_

 _"Gray."_

 _"Take him!"_

 _Behind them, Del laughed hysterically. He danced around the circumference of the fire, waving, his body undulating with the climbing inferno. High and piercing his crazed laugh ascended with the cracking embers of dying trees._

 _"Idiot," Gray mumbled, wincing as he pushed himself to his feet. He supported Natsu's lifeless form hung over his shoulder. His brother stared at him with the gaze of a ghost, Romeo's arm draped around his neck. "Let's get going."_

* * *

"Here, Gray."

"Thanks," he took the steaming hot mug of golden tea offered to him. But he didn't once look up to Levi. Something inside of him couldn't bring himself to. He had promised himself that he would never come back to her house, never put her in any more danger that knowing him meant. And now he had been in her house, laying, useless for a week. Scooting up on the mountain of pillows at his back, Gray lay back, sighing. He had to leave. It was only a matter of time.

Levi sat on the foot of her bed, her own mug of tea wrapped in her slender fingers. Taking a long sip, she sat quietly staring at her large glass sliding door at the back of her house. She watched the gentle, biting freeze nip at the redwood towering in her yard. Rustic burnt orange leaves rustled. "How did you get shot, Gray?"

Sipping his scalding tea, Gray remained silent. He watched the white steam coil off its surface.

"Gray, tell me what's going on."

"I can't." Gray shifted, uncomfortably stiff against the soft white sheets. Placing the mug on the plain nightstand next to his head, Gray cast the sheets off of him. He made to get up, but frowned when his body couldn't move, held fast to the bed.

Levi cocked a brow back, a ghost of a smile tracing her lips as she sipped her tea. "Going somewhere?"

Gray's hands clenched around the belt wrapped around his waist. It strapped him to the bed, a thick padlock sitting against the strong leather. He shifted his body as much as possible, the belt not allowing him to get as much as an inch off the bed.

"You had a collapsed lung, Gray."

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure you don't go out and get yourself killed."

"Levi."

"I'm thinking of making some rosemary chicken tonight. That okay with you?"

"Levi, let me up. I need to get out of here."

"Yeah," Levi sipped back the last of her tea, "maybe a side of roasted asparagus. That sounds good."

Gray stared at his childhood friend frigidly, but she headed out of the bedroom. "Levi!" The door clicked shut. Sighing, Gray's head fell back into the overstuffed pillows.

* * *

 _Snow crunched under their ladened steps as they slowly cut their way through the ancient, snow-strewn frozen wasteland. Gray and Lyon shouldered their comrades. Gray's breath plumed past his lips with his labored breathing. If he looked at the relaxed face of the pink-haired soldier he carried, Gray thought, Natsu could easily have just been sleeping. It may have all just been a peaceful sleep if it weren't for the crimson line trailing from his dragging, ripped leg, across the white landscape._

 _Behind them, Del danced a jig up the mountainside. Blood poured rivers down his face – over his crazed black eyes._

 _"Gray, he doesn't have a pulse."_

 _The raven haired, ash covered special ops captain ignored his brother. The heat of his withering life was being stripped by the unrelenting frozen world. He limped, his hurt side losing all feeling. Whether it was from the gash taken out of his body, or the way he jerked with each step carrying Natsu's dead weight, Gray grit his teeth, his boots sinking through the fresh snow. "Come on, Salamander," Gray growled, jerking Natsu with each step. "I said I didn't want to carry your heavy ass body out of here."_

 _Down the mountainside, wood cracked, skyscraping, towering trees snapping like thin twigs. They slammed into the ground, flames licking over their charred hides. Cursing, Gray face-planted into the snow. His step had given way with the crumbling snow. He rolled over, Natsu's thick arm laying as a branch over his chest. His fingers trailed at the white snow over the ashy mask covering his face. He rubbed them together over the crystally frost. He couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel its chilling bite._

 _Overhead, a tree groaned with the stress of the writhing flames. A branch cracked, fire crawling over it even as it lay in the snow. He looked at it with hollow blue eyes next to his cheek. Neither could he feel the blistering heat of the fire's wrath._

 _"Gray," Lyon fell to his knees by his brother's head. He held his fingers to Natsu's neck, nodding slowly. "We need to move faster, Gray. I'll take Natsu."_

 _"You take Romeo."_

 _"Romeo's dead."_

 _"No," Gray shook his head slowly. "Get Romeo."_

 _"Damn it, Captain!" Lyon grabbed Gray's jacket in a fist. "Romeo's dead, Captain. If we don't leave him behind, we are all dead."_

 _Gray's jaw knotted. His eyes narrowing at his brother. "Last time I checked I was the leader of this squad, Lieutenant."_

 _"Then why don't you start acting like one?" Lyon grabbed Natsu with his good arm, hefting his dead weight over his shoulders. "He's gone, Gray. We need to leave him behind."_

 _"Fairy Tail does not leave anyone behind."_

 _"So you will kill you and me. You'd kill Natsu?"_

 _"Where's Del?"_

 _Lyon shook his head._

 _Fire cracked around them. It started to wrap, closing the hillside in inescapable inferno._

 _"Gray."_

 _Swallowing, Gray stood slowly, rising as the ash fell. Death rained. Cold, Gray slid his arm under Natsu's arm, raising him between the two brothers. He looked down at the snow, red, slick, and cloying. He looked up at the mountainside. Through the falling black sky, through the writhing red flames, light glistened off the white snow._

 _Behind them, ash laid a blanket over Romeo in an eternal rest._

* * *

"Dinner's ready," Levi announced, coming through the bedroom door. She wasn't surprised when she set the plate down on the nightstand next to the bed to find it empty. She just sat on the edge of the clumped sheets, picking up a piece of roasted asparagus. It mulled around her tongue as she glanced to the pen sticking out of the padlock on the virgin white sheets.

!

Gray grimaced as he slid into the driver seat of his brother's blue Tesla. He clutched at his side as he flicked on the deadly quiet car. The Tesla backed itself out of the driveway while he flicked through the onboard level 3 security computer. As his tagged links flicked across the screen, Gray rubbed at his eyes. His fingers drummed on the dashboard. He glanced back at his rifle's case on the backseat. And he grabbed the steering wheel, gunning it down the empty street.

* * *

Natsu scrubbed his palm over his mouth. He leaned his weight against the edge of his desk, his emerald gaze burning through its top. His fingers rapped against the wooden surface. One more time, he played the audio recording Captain Fullbuster had left him. One more time, he flipped over Gray's note to find the old top-secret codes of the Etherion Satellite WMD. One more time, he bit his lip, hanging his head as his heel bounced. He still saw Gray in the cave when they were separated from the world. Even alone, he spoke in ghost stories.

It had been a week since then.

Frustration burning Natsu's eyes, he scrubbed at the back of his head. His short-cropped military buzzed pink hair felt as sandpaper against his palm. Why couldn't Gray – his captain – have just told him straight out what was going on? Instead, seven days, and ten hours of sleep later, Natsu stayed staring at the only evidence he had to go by. What Gray had given him.

Were they warnings?

 _ **"There wasn't a mission!"**_

Natsu cheeks hallowed, his eyes drifting along the tides of his memory. If there wasn't a mission what the hell were they doing? Why had Romeo died?

" _ **I've lied in bed with this country. The poison seeping into my veins . . . it will claim me eventually, but before it does I will strike back at those spinners of the web."**_

That, Natsu understood. He had felt the uneasiness of the ground upon which he stood when his captain had betrayed Fiori. For months he thought it the betrayal of a man he looked up to above all others, a man he loved. But, Natsu ran his tongue along his sharp white teeth. The sinking feeling he had lately, the quicksand that was suffocating him wasn't Gray.

He believed in Captain Fullbuster. And that could only mean one thing: the country he served, the country he swore his life to protect, the military – his family – there was something wrong. He picked up the singed top-secret paper again.

So many things didn't make sense, but what kept Natsu up at four in the morning, staring at his black ceiling, was what his captain had said in that cave.

"A game." Natsu whispered, flicking the paper back onto his tabletop. How the hell did WMD firing codes fall into a game, Captain?

 _ **"It's all a lie, Natsu. The war. Silent New Year. All of it. We're alone, Natsu. There's no world left for us."**_

Silent New Year. Natsu jammed his thumb into the corner of his eye. Squeezing. "What the hell does it all mean!?" Silent New Year, the bombing a Magnolia. The night when explosions and fire overwhelmed a city gazing up at sparkling fireworks. The trigger point of the war. Hell, it had been the reason Natsu had enlisted.

When you couldn't feel safe in your own home, when children went to sleep every night tucked in their footy-pajamas not knowing if they would wake up. Fiori had been attacked. He would give his life if it meant protecting it.

A lie? How? Millions of innocent civilians were dead. How was it a lie? "Captain!" Natsu growled, his balled fist slamming down on his worn table. Where was the connection? Captain Fullbuster had said he was payment. Natsu frantically scratched at his pink hair. The world had been falling away, the ground crumbling beneath Natsu's feet since his captain went AWOL. But he felt like Gray was the only person he could trust.

A knock racked at his door. The interrogation Captain Fullbuster had recorded clicked off. Natsu pressed his shoulder against the wall, his pistol trained, finger curled on the hairpin trigger. A couple seconds ticked by while the special agent steeled his breathing. He threw the door open.

Sting yelped, gulping just as his commander tugged him inside. Natsu cursed, reholstering his sidearm. "What are you doing here?"

"Sir, I needed to talk to you."

Holding back his drapes, Natsu peered out a small slit into the empty street of his neighborhood. His heart slammed in his ears. He felt as a mouse, trapped. No, he definitely couldn't trust the people he'd sworn his life to. Letting out a heavy sigh, he flicked his gaze to his subordinate. "What is it?"

"Sir," Sting shook his head rapidly. "Natsu, I met with the GHOST council. They called me in for –"

"Why are you telling me this? Anything to do with GHOST is top-secret, even with your commander."

"I'm not supposed to be here. But I couldn't – Natsu, they were asking a lot of questions about you."

"And what did you say?"

"Sir, I –"

The front door snapped off its hinges. Ten MP's rushed into Natsu's small apartment, assault rifles trained. The special agent stared back at them with raging fires of mythical fury in his emerald eyes. "Natsu Dragneel, you are under arrest for treason against the Fiori Republic."

"What the hell is this?" Sting stepped in front of his commander.

"Please step aside, sir." The lead of the military police squad, decked out in all-black, silenced camo, stepped forward. He stared down the iron sights of his M4, the barrel pointed straight between Natsu's burning green eyes.

"What are you doing?"

Natsu grabbed the blond's shoulder, squeezing it gently, pushing him aside.

But Sting made for the head MP. "You've got the wr-"

"You do your duty soldier!" Special Agent Dragneel barked. "You are a soldier of Fiori, you do as you are told." Natsu's emerald gaze burned into him. It flicked back into the other room where the metal recorder and note still lay on his table. Sting glanced back along with his commander's eyeline.

He blinked, hiding his frown behind a soldier's mask. And as the MP grabbed Natsu, stealing his sidearm, and clicking metal cuffs shut behind his back, Sting saluted. "Sir."

* * *

 **Next Chapter: Trust**


	10. Trust

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

* * *

 **Chapter 10: Trust**

The crack from his neck rang a gunshot through the dark room weighed with the oppression of the uncaring eyes looking down upon him as gods. Not gods, Natsu thought, his green eyes burning the brilliant fire of freedom from the depths.

Not gods in the slightest. He would not be intimidated again by the high-rise, the sleek black obsidian plate of wall that shouldered its ghostly eyes to false heights. The black stone which gleamed with the little light offered in the shrouded room where the dark of night reigned eternal, it quivered, soulless.

Natsu shifted slightly, the tug of his handcuffed wrists behind his back straining his bulging shoulders under his worn forest green tee. This, Natsu realized, was where he stood. The pain in his heart. The confusion of chaos in his mind. They parted to clear blue seas when he all but admitted one simple fact:

he trusted Captain Gray Fullbuster.

He loved Gray Fullbuster.

If it was to be the world or his captain, he knew the road he'd take now. If he could not trust his heart, then no matter what happened tomorrow, the sun would never rise for Special Agent Dragneel. He stood at the precipice.

Four pairs of clear, angled, eyes stared down upon him. Accusing him. Assessing him. As if they were parents ready to snuff out their child, a chill fell over the long spanning black, black table.

But Natsu smiled. He knew the bite of the cold. This couldn't even compare.

"Special agent Natsu Dragneel, I assume you know why you were called here, today." The sole woman along the obsidian picked up a thick packet of papers, dropping them on the stone. It echoed as a cannon blast. Natsu didn't need to see the file to know it was his reports on the missions. When the pink haired soldier remained unequivocally silent, she leaned forward, her already venomous eyes slitting to knives. "By your silence not only do I draw your acceptance but your guilt. How long have you been working for the traitor?"

Natsu smirked, his emerald eyes challenging, burning through the dark.

"Enough, Minerva," the young man in the center of the blackness raised his palm before ever so slowly sliding forward in his seat. His long agile fingers laced together on the flat of the empty obsidian. "He's not going to answer you." Smiling easily, the man tilted his princely face, sapphire blue hair trailing past piercing eyes. "Natsu Dragneel, it is due to you that the ghost council is devoid of one member. You're inadequacy, purposeful or otherwise - whichever is utterly irrelevant - killed the most decorated naval officer in our distinguished fleet. Do you have anything you want to say?"

Natsu's jaw knotted. His eyes an inferno. He locked onto the plain of oblivion in the nothing, staring straight ahead. "Natsu Dragneel, Special Agent, Fiori Martial Special Forces, serial number 814990."

Jellal's lips winged into a wicked grin. "I'll get right to it, then, Special Agent. It is the findings of this ghost council that Special Agent Natsu Dragneel not only did not perform his duty in protecting Fiori's most beloved citizens, but he aided and collaborated with the known traitor, Gray Fullbuster. Explain yourself."

"Natsu Dragneel, Special Agent, Fiori Martial Special Forces, serial number 814990."

"It is the official findings of this highest of councils that Natsu Dragneel personally undermined the security of the charges he was sworn to protect in order to aid his treacherous comrade.

"Tell me, Special Agent, who was it who gave the order to move Attorney General Felmann into the time locked saferoom giving Gray Fullbuster the ability to murder him?

"Tell me how it came to be that my brother was killed and was supplied with the means of escape off a secured military base?

"Tell me who was the person who had forsaken his charge at the bridge of the Leviathan, supplying Gray Fullbuster with the line of sight to kill the late admiral?"

Natsu couldn't help but chuckle. His bulging shoulders bounced.

Amusement shining, Jellal's brow winged up. "Something to say this time, soldier?"

Laughing, Natsu smirked, "actually, yes. You want me to become your scapegoat? You are a coward." His eyes scanned dangerously from face to face. "All of you are. You can't admit that there is no stopping Captain Fullbuster. You all trained him. You all created him. You all made him the best there ever was. And when you betrayed him, what did you think was going to happen?

You refuse to admit you can't stop him. He will be at your throat, but you move for politics. You don't want the scare that the most dangerous man alive is out there and capable? The only way it was possible was if he had help." Natsu shook his head slowly, his smirk tugging at his lips, "you don't know Captain Fullbuster. He didn't have help. He didn't need help. You can say whatever you want on your official record but it won't stop reality."

"Special Agent," Jellal returned to his speech without a single trace of Natsu's words upon his tongue. "A crime of such magnitude is of the worst ilk we can possibly imagine here in our great country. Natsu Dragneel. You are hereby found guilty of high treason."

Natsu swallowed, feeling the keen blade sliding between his ribs. He'd prepared himself since setting his heart resolute. He'd known what would happen when he'd dragged Captain Fullbuster out of the storm. Could've lied. But something stilled his hand. In that report, laying as an omen on the black slab, was the truth of that day. He knew when writing it he was cutting his headstone, his signature was an epitaph upon the grave's face. Though it still felt as wicked a knife as ever he'd known.

"You are hereby stripped of all titles and accolades of duty. You are to be executed as the traitor you are."

Natsu ran his tongue along his sharp white fang-like teeth, his face placid. With his shoulders squared, he held at attention in the center of the shadows. "Nothing you do to me will change the facts. I'm insignificant."

At that, Jellal's grin grew ever more wicked. His chin tucked under his woven fingers, eyes burning pure entertainment. "Natsu, my slow boy, you are completely insignificant. So insignificant that did you ever wonder why I chose you to head the task force to bring down Gray Fullbuster?" His poisonous smile broke with a laugh.

"Secretary J-"

His laughter caught in a second, his demon eyes slashing to his companions on the obsidian table. "Leave us."

"Sec-"

Any other man would have slammed his fist down upon the flat of unforgiving stone. He would have shown complete force, dominating. But not Jellal. His unamused eyes narrowed. And he said nothing. Natsu stood still as he felt the oppressive weight of his stare. It expunged as a twisted rancor, slicing as wicked tendrils. Wordlessly, one by one the three Ghost council members stood, slinking off into the black.

He waited silently, staring down upon Natsu. "I apologize for my colleagues." The amusement that was his alone slowly filled his eyes again. "They can never see the fun that this all is. I must thank Fullbuster before I personally put a bullet between his eyes for ridding me of one of them." His finger tapped hollow bone upon the stone. He held his jaw in the other palm. "Now where was I?

"Ah, yes, your insignificance! You are just another soldier, just another pawn on the board of play. So why would I elevate you to the level of a knight? Maybe because I already used the important pawns in the opening act. The queen's gambit has been laid out. Now it is time to sacrifice my knight to take out black's queen."

"Killing me will not -"

"You just don't get it, boy, do you?" He shook his head, a maniacal laugh escaping his thin lips. The red of his tattoo spoke of blood under a demon's gaze. "I don't want you to die! Gods, no. A live worm is always better for baiting a hook than a limp dead one. You are completely and utterly insignificant to everyone," Jellal grinned wide - far too sickeningly wide to be human. The skin stretched thin. "Utterly insignificant, except to one person."

Natsu's jaw dropped. He felt as if the floor had suddenly gone out from under him. And he was falling. "Gray."

"You'll be delivering his head to me on a silver platter. Thank you for your service ex-soldier boy."

"Why?" Natsu's burning green eyes settled into a lost sage. It was just like trying to outthink his captain. Every move he made, he made of his own accord. He dictated his own actions. But when the curtain fell, it always showed that he played exactly into their hands. The situation only ever got worse.

Jellal stood, pressing a COM under the table. "Why? Why Fullbuster? What a dumb question is that? You really do understand nothing." Jellal's lips pouted out. "What a boring existence, to be swept along without ever understanding the currents. But," he shrugged, "such is the life of the minnow. Bliss supposedly has its comforts though they elude me." The large double doors behind Natsu split with a garrison of ten armed soldiers. The harsh light was swallowed by the eternal darkness of the abyss. One of the guards grabbed Natsu by the arm, but he did nothing to register it. He stood there, frozen.

"Oh," Jellal beamed, smiling as if to a long missed friend. "And if you go ahead and get yourself killed during this mission, that would be fine by me. More than fine actually. Would save me a small hassle. So, yeah, I'd appreciate if you would make sure you're dead after...or before, honestly it makes no difference now."

"He won't fall into your trap." Natsu said hollowly.

"Ahh. He's already in it. You both have been from day one. Thank you for supplying me with the entertainment you have, but it's time to move on to bigger games."

Natsu was tugged out of the Ghost council chamber, surrounded by a small army of men. He looked up, just as he was thrown into the back of a waiting armored truck. One of ten. Each, were packed with fully trained, fully armed soldiers intent on a single deathly aim. Behind Natsu soldier after soldier climbed in before locking the truck from the inside.

He stared, his chest numb with shock, out the thin slats through the thick metal walls. Thin streams of daylight managed through the holes.

* * *

The midnight blue Tesla shot as a silent spectre down empty backstreets. They were blanketed in an eternal night by the spanning concrete overpass above. Column after column of grey supports blurred past in the maddening sprint of the silent car.

With every block that sped past, ice settled further in Gray's veins. He glanced at the clock, the pad of his thumb tracing slowly over the leather wheel. His sight lingered on the rifle sitting as a passenger. It still irked him that it wasn't his sniper. This one was pristine. Modded for their purposes.

It didn't bear the bold crest of his squad. It didn't carry the weight of Romeo's memory. His hands were too stained red to touch a weapon virgin to blood.

That rifle waited for him in the trunk. It would be bathed anew soon enough. His hand idly traced down his chest, feeling the metal buckles underneath his jacket. Then his fingers fell to his side. The scar of losing Romeo never did heal. But the pain of being shot by the Salamander was a burning tear he was crippled by.

He glanced at the clock again. Should be any min-

"Visual confirmed." The voice of Gray's past buzzed in the COM line running to his earpiece. There was going to be hell to pay for bringing that particular person into it, but he could think of no other way. He needed the best. "Counting ten strong, estimated one hundred to one hundred fifty." The voice clipped off in his ear, all business.

"We are go." Gray said calmly, his blue eyes turning to frigid glaciers. He angled the car and sped as a gunshot up an on-ramp. On the overpass, Gray jerked the e-brake. White smoke spewed a dragon's breath as he spun the wheel. The back wheels spun, whipping in a wide screeching arc. The ground marred with the breath of the burning rubber tires. He was thrown as a limp rag doll within the car, but he set his gaze as a cold-blooded target on the grill of the lead Humvee barreling towards him.

"I didn't get my ass dragged all the way out here to watch you die - you hear me?"

A normal boast or jest would have been on the tip of his tongue, but he was swallowed in the icy catacombs of the mission. Nothing would shake him from it.

Grabbing the special rifle by the hilt, Gray threw open the door. Fitting the butt of the assault weapon to his shoulder, Gray stared down its metal sights. He turned it over in his hand, rocking in his wrist to gauge its weight. Two miles back, the convoy barreled toward him. But he walked slowly, with an icy purpose. Straight down the middle of the road, he walked a man alone in the world. He challenged the beasts charging forward.

Though it was nearing the late morning, the city remained utterly quiet. No cars jammed the open roads. No civilians to worry about getting caught up in a crossfire. He glanced at the towering buildings lining the overpass, tall thin glass shells reflected the morning sun's brilliance. It cast half the world in obscene brightness.

As the lead Humvee approached, Gray fired a single warning shot into the air. The release exploded, sound reverberating off the tall buildings walling them in. It boomed as if he were in the center of a bunker, slamming against his eardrums as a bass pedal. He aimed down his sights again, firing shots into the ground between him and the vehicle closing the distance.

Holding his rifle off to the side, he fired two more warning shots, his icy eyes a demon's dare against the stampeding death. Crossing the rifle over his chest, he fired two more shots into the air. One mile.

It was then he heard the rocking, pulsing heartbeat of stage one. It thundered in the confines of the city. Gray glanced up to find the metal belly of a morning news helicopter beaming with light. He allowed himself a small smirk, before lowering his sights back down to the Humvees. The news had been anonymously tipped off about the confrontation the night before. All he needed was watching eyes.

And to that effect, the lead Humvee's breaks screeched. That was one of the biggest gambles they had to play. It could very simply have been all over then and there if the drivers kept their feet on the gas. Not like he could do anything to physically stop them. But the public demanded heroes of its men and women in uniform. Other countries, other militaries, other governments, they were the bad guys. They were the detestables, the ones who resorted to falling into overwhelming the weak with their might. They were the ones who chose death over peace. A camera could not capture Fiori Army Humvees running a single man over on an empty highway.

At least forty/sixty. That was the best Gray could figure. But that sixty won out. The lead Humvee's doors flew open. Soldiers poured out of it as crows on a rotting carcass. In the blink of an eye, Gray was staring down the muzzles of over a hundred automatic assault rifles trained with deadly purpose.

"Gray Fullbuster," barked a slap-jaw rough military tongue through a megaphone, "you are ordered to stand down. Place the weapon on the ground, and get on your knees. You have no way out. Do not spill blood unnecessarily."

"I want to see Natsu Dragneel." Gray ordered back, his voice calm and cool despite the hundreds of glinting bullets waiting in chambers on hair-pin triggers under twitchy fingers. His own voice was amplified as well – enough for the news helicopter overhead to pick up. He'd rigged that up with the Tesla, a wireless mic at his throat fed to a small arsenal of speakers. "If you show me he is alive and unharmed I will do as you say and surrender myself peacefully."

When the commander of the battalion stepped forward, Gray raised his gun, aiming directly between the commander's eyes. To his credit, the trained soldier did not even flinch. He held the megaphone up to his mouth again. "You must first show your good faith by lowering your weapon."

"Call it insurance, Commander. Now, Natsu Dragneel."

"You of all people should know, traitor to Fiori, we do not negotiate with terrorists."

"When does a son born of a country's blood become a terrorist? How about this. You will bring Natsu Dragneel out of the truck in five seconds. Any second longer and I may just start saying everything I know about Silent New Year and Secretary of War Jellal Fernandez." Even from the distance separating them he could see the commander tense. The second gamble paid off then. It was the only card Gray held, but it did little of the Commander knew nothing of the Ghost council and how valuable that particular card was. However, being that this whole scheme was Jellal's design, he bet his life – literally – on the fact that he would put his own people in the army detail. "Of course, if I confirm his well-being, then I will surrender with sealed lips." Either way, Gray looked up at the hungry recording cameras in the hovering chopper above, the news would have its story. "One. Two."

The Commander flicked his wrist at a subordinate and before Gray could even get to four, Natsu was hopping down out of the back of the fourth Humvee.

He was passed up through the crowd of soldiers until finally he was pushed to the front. The Commander took Natsu by the elbow tugging him along toward Gray Fullbuser with a regiment of fifty soldiers on his heels. "As you can see," the Commander spoke when he was within ear-shot of the raven-haired rogue. "He is in perfect health."

"Salamander? How are you holding up?"

"Captain. You shouldn't have come. I'm sorry."

"Save it."

"Well, Fullbuster?" The Commander cocked a brow.

Gray held up his palms. Dropping down to his knees, he placed the weapon on its side on the cold asphalt. His fingers interlocked behind his head.

"Captain! No!"

"Trust me," he mouthed to his fiery-hearted subordinate. His eyes were icy cold staring up at the Commander. "A deal is a deal."

"Secure him."

Two soldiers broke past their commander. The lead grabbed Gray by the shoulder, the other moved to secure his hands.

That was when the first shot was fired.

That was when the first soldier fell.

* * *

Next Chapter: Price to Pay


	11. Price to Pay (Part 1)

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

 *****WARNING: This is an M rated story for graphic violence – strong language – and feels. Only for mature audiences!*****

A/N: I wasn't planning on cutting this chapter here, but I couldn't resist. Too much fun. Instead of putting the full chapter out at the end of the week, I split it with two smaller chapters. The second part will be up by the end of the week.

For all those who complained about a cliffhanger - enjoy ;)

-James

* * *

Chapter 11: Price to Pay (Part 1)

"Get out."

"What's going on?" Natsu frowned heavily. The caravan stopping on a dime, the trucks emptying, it could only mean one thing. The soldier at the bumper grabbed Natsu by the arm, helping him jump down onto the street.

Overhead, he heard the air-ripping slaps of a helicopter. Though when he rounded the truck he faced the backs of over a hundred identically clad soldiers, he heard nothing else. As he walked, each step, the pounding of the chopper's blades faded under the clenching of his heart. It pounded unceasingly, unsettling his very bones, but he felt as if he were wading through thick, viscous water. Everything dulled while the soldiers parted.

It was then he saw his mentor. His captain. His love. He stood one man against an army, his rifle trained, finger on the trigger. Why? Why had he come? A commander ranked soldier barked something though the words faded between his ears.

All he saw was the raven haired captain calmly staring down the iron sights of his rifle, taking on a Spartan's demise.

"Salamander? How are you holding up?" He met his captain's clear, crystal blue eyes for just a second, but it split as a shard through his heart.

"Captain. You shouldn't have come. I'm sorry." Sorry. It was all he could say. Sorry for it all. Sorry for everything. Nothing could express the pain in his chest. Sorry.

"Save it." Gray said in his voice Natsu knew so well. He was swallowed in his demon soul. The calm genius upon a barren frozen world. He often felt as if ice was more than just a metaphor for what chilled his blood. The man was focused. Nothing - over a hundred guns trained on him - could chip away at the glacial soldier.

"Well, Fullbuster?"

Gray held up his palms slowly. He held out the side of the rifle, his frozen eyes falling to the ground. Dropping down to his knees, he placed the weapon on the cold asphalt. His fingers interlocked behind his head.

"Captain! No!" Natsu jerked, but strong hands held him in place. Blue demon eyes snapped to his.

"Trust me," he mouthed. His eyes were icy cold staring up at the Commander. "A deal is a deal."

"Secure him."

Two soldiers broke past their commander. The lead grabbed Gray by the shoulder, the other moved to secure his hands.

Suddenly, the soldier holding Gray collapsed. Blood fountained into the air from his knee cap. His eyes went instantly blank with the overwhelming shock of searing pain emptying his body. Natsu's eyes shot wide.

"Sniper!" The Fiori commander shouted. The crowd of soldiers tensed, but he barked, "hold!" The soldiers nervously scanned the rooftops. They were trapped, exposed, belly-up with an eagle waiting to swoop down from the heavens.

"The next is on you, commander. It is your decision. This soldier will live," Gray glanced to the young boy clutching his knee. Blood poured past his clenched fingers. It died the green camo fatigues. "The next won't."

"We could kill you here and now. You-"

"Commander," Gray smirked, his gaze burning with dangerous blue flames. "There's a red dot on your forehead."

The commander's jaw knotted. Natsu was frozen in place. The commander nearly growled, his fat lip curling and quivering. He was a boar. He was dangerous. Animals didn't mess with him. But he knew better than to take on a wolf.

For they hunt in packs. His black eyes darted up to the city skyline. And they slid back down to the blue eyed, sleek black furred wolf on his knees. He nearly froze under the feral beast's icy stare.

"You will let Natsu Dragneel go. And he and I will leave together. Once we are safe, that red dot will disappear."

Natsu swallowed, his emerald eyes switching from Gray to the commander and back again. This was crazy. This wasn't going to work. There was no way in hell. What the hell was Captain Fullbuster thinking?

The commander's harsh laugh cut with rocking disdain. "I've heard stories about you." He shook his head, his lip tugging as if tasting rotten fish on his plate. "I've heard a lot of stories. How intelligent. How godly. And now I'm left woefully disappointed, Captain. I thought you were better than this. Did you really think this would work? Like I would forsake my duty for my own life. How pathetic."

Gray stared at the military boar silently until his triumphant laughter ended. "I'd hoped to avoid it." His wolfly eyes glanced to the buildings around until they fell back on the commander. "I've placed about five hundred pounds of plastic around the supporting towers of this freeway. And around these buildings." His amplified voice was eaten up by the hungry news helicopter, lapping up the story with a glee. "My partner will trigger them if anything happens to me."

The boar's beady eyes narrowed. "You are a poor liar."

"Insurance, commander." The two stared at each other, a silent war of wills being waged in the air between. "How many deaths are going to be on the Fiori Army's hands today?"

"I don't believe you'd kill yourself."

Gray let out a soft laugh. "I died a long time ago, commander."

Tense seconds went by. An abyss felt to have opened up underneath them with a strong singularity pull. Natsu stared at that calm, in-control, face. Despite being on his knees, you would have thought he was a general talking down to a lowly enlisted kid. One thing about Gray, Natsu knew, was that you did not outplay his hand at the table. Bluff or not, he'd take the pot.

"It's your call commander, what's it going to be?"

"Blow it." Natsu blinked. The commander called Gray's hand?

Placing a hand on his quad, Gray ever so slowly rose to his feet, a fighter challenging on the mat. A smirk pulled at his lips. He pulled the rifle up with him, eyeing down the sights again.

"Well, traitor, where are the explosions you promised?"

His brow quirked. "I'm not prepared to sacrifice Fiori citizens for your games even if you are. Again." The last word dripped off his tongue. "But," Natsu squared his shoulders when the barrel of Gray's gun shifted to him. "Payment for your actions, Natsu."

Closing his eyes, Natsu's jaw clenched. He bowed his head, staring directly into the cold blue of Gray's eyes. Taking in a long breath, he steadied his legs, shifting his feet to square his chest with the muzzle of Gray's rifle.

The commander's barking laugh filled the air again. "You throw your life away just to be the one who puts a bullet in your fellow traitor? Fantastic." He sidestepped. "Boys, give him some room. Let him do what he came here for. And drop him once he does." The crowd parted, leaving Natsu alone to stare down death's door.

"Bye, Salamander," Gray whispered.

He squeezed the trigger.

* * *

Next Chapter: Price to Pay (Part 2)


	12. Price to Pay (Part 2)

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

 *****WARNING: This is an M rated story for graphic violence – strong language – and feels. Only for mature audiences!*****

* * *

Chapter 12: Price to Pay (Part 2)

The slug hit him in the lower stomach. He doubled over, nearly retching at the impact that slammed through his intestines. His hand clutched at his stomach, pain lancing across his sharp face. He felt tethering arms wrap around his waist. They squeezed tight.

Then his head snapped back as he was yanked by a Titan's grip off the overpass. He shot skyward, slicing through the air as a human javelin. The color drained from his face. Sparks flashed across his vision.

His sudden ascent was halted just as abruptly. He had a split second, his momentum continuing. His breath fogged the glass window. A metal whine whirred. And he was dropped into the chasm as a lump of dead weight.

* * *

Gray grit his teeth. The harness dug into his chest. His stomach was in his lungs. Backwards, he flew through the air. Twenty stories he soared, hanging as a spider on an invisible line. The wind whipped past his face with icy knives.

A metal click thunked behind him, swinging him as a bob straight into the building which he met with a thick thump. The little breath left pressed out of his lungs.

Damn motor, Gray groaned, splat on the forty-ninth floor of the Regents Residents Suites as an insignificant bug. He managed to peel himself off the sleek surface in time to turn around and see the mayhem.

He grimaced, averting his eyes. Lyon was going to kill him.

The pristine, beautiful midnight blue teched out Tesla S was smoking, sick electrical fires springing out of spilling toxic lithium. It was cloying. Its entire frame was beyond gone, crumbled into a tinfoil ball. The front bumper was in the back seats, flattened by the grill of the Humvee it slammed into nose-first. Motionless soldiers draped across its body. More lay still on the ground at its tires.

A metal click sounded behind his ear and then a rapid whirr of unspooling carbon-fiber line. He plunged back to the bowels of Earth.

The Tesla had done its job. It seemed that no one noticed it barreling down the road at Gray's back. The EVAC grapple had initiated about a second late causing his ankle to smack sickeningly the windshield.

As the vertigo overtook him, Gray squeezed his eyes shut. His chest felt battered. He'd gone a couple rounds as a punching bag for the world's heavyweights. By the time, his foot touched the ground, he collapsed to a knee. A truck steamrolled over his chest.

"Captain!"

Gray allowed himself one more grimace, clamping his teeth together, before standing. As soon as he was upright, his pale face returned from the plains of pain to the military mask of ice.

Natsu grabbed him before he knew what was happening. He frowned, feeling the heavy embrace of the fiery hearted man. His chest was about ready to implode. Confusion fell as a veil. But even with the intense collapsing pain, something felt so good in that embrace. There was a connection, a warmth that overwhelmed his frozen state. "Wh-"

Natsu stepped back, shaking his head. His cheeks burned crimson, but he wore the biggest of smiles. He shrugged, but threw his arms around the raven haired man again. "I'm so glad. I'm so-"

"As much as I'd love to hear the ass-fucking over the COM. You think you could get your skinny pale ass moving?"

Not privy to the voice in Gray's ear, Natsu squeezed his captain tighter, burying his head in the raven's trapezius.

Gray felt as if he were about to die. But he couldn't bring himself to push the pink haired man away. However, it only took a few seconds before a fit of coughing overwhelmed Gray. He pressed the palm of his hand to his mouth as his insides were tearing apart. His throat shot through and angry red.

"Capta-" Natsu's suddenly worried green eyes sparked. "Gray! Are you-"

The raven haired man pulled back his hand, shaking with wracking quakes. The pallor of his face slipped from pale to white. Splotches of red blood coated the pads of his palm.

"Gray! Shi-"

"It's nothing," Gray swallowed hard, pushing the rest of the blood back down his system.

"But you weren't hit..."

"You were already injured. How long were you going to keep that a secret?" Cracked a harsh voice in Gray's ear. "How bad are you?"

"It's nothing," Gray repeated, this time for the mic he wore. His hazy icy eyes shifted to Natsu. "We need to move."

Together they made their way into an alleyway shooting off from the road underneath the overpass. Natsu stared at Gray's back cautiously while they moved. He wheezed. Every breath had an airy labor. His steps shuffled.

They made it three blocks away, ducking from one dark alley to another between the high skyrises until Gray pressed his back to a brick wall. His shoulders moved with each over-burdened breath.

"Gray you need to sit down." Natsu put a supportive hand on his arm. His sage eyes were swimming with worry.

"You need to get your skinny pale ass out of there," came the harsh, clipped voice in his ear.

"Don't I know it." Gray muttered.

Natsu frowned. "Then sit down!"

"What?"

"You just said-"

"Let's move," Gray squared his shoulders, pushing off from the wall.

Natsu kept within a step of his captain, convinced that any second the labored breathing would give way and he'd collapse. He should have been on alert, searching the streets, watching for any sign of movement. But all he cared about was the man limping ahead of him.

Gray pressed himself against the last of a wall near an alley's corner. Carefully and slowly, he peered around the corner. Signaling Natsu, they darted across the empty street.

"Incoming, niner southwest on third street."

Gray held up his fist. Airy rasps escaped his lips. He had to keep coughing or else the fluid built up in his lungs. Damn. He crouched down onto a knee, unable to stay standing. Natsu crouched beside him putting a protective palm on his back.

"Niner passing you in forty."

Gray glanced back at Natsu. The touch on his back felt grounding in a way he couldn't describe. The pink haired soldier looked at him with an intense emerald gaze. Gray's brows scrunched. "Why are you rubbing your stomach?"

"It friggin hurts where you hit me with that harness thing."

Despite himself, Gray let out a light chuckle. He rubbed at the corners of his eyes. "You actually shot me."

Sniffling his nose, Natsu shifted to hold out a reflective shard of mirror discarded in the trash of the alleyways. "I didn't hit you anywhere vital."

Forcing himself to stemy his laughter as the sound of a roaring Humvee engine approached, Gray just shook his head. "That's 'cuz you can't shoot for a damn."

"Well excuse me for not being a freak crack shot who could shoot a bullet with another a bullet." His jaw rolled as he saw the matchbox sized truck in the mirror grow. A small detachment surrounded the vehicle while it crawled down the street.

"So you were trying to kill me and just missed." Gray sighed, glancing at the mirror in Natsu's fingers. "I wondered."

"I...tried...I couldn't..."

Gray didn't make a single movement as the battalion neared. He waited, hidden in the shadows of the alley. Though, he let out another nearly silent laugh. He shook his head. "I still can't believe you wrote in your report that you saved me from drowning and bleeding out. What an idiot."

"Well excuse me for saving your life!" Natsu quietly bit.

"After shooting me."

Natsu's burning green eyes slid to meet Gray's. They narrowed. "You know what?" He growled.

Gray smirked, laughter dancing in his crystal blue eyes. But then they shot wide.

Natsu closed the distance between them in a snake's strike, taking Gray's lips with his burning touch. He closed his eyes, tucking his fingers in a soft grace under Gray's chin. His hot lips were a lightning strike crashing through Gray's cold body.

Outside the alley, footsteps padded past. Truck tires rolled. An engine rumbled.

But they were all alone. Captured. The fight in Gray's system faded with the burning tides of meeting Natsu's fiery heart. His body laxed, hands slowly trailing up to wrap around the strong framed soldier. Slowly, his eyelids drifted shut.

He found himself warming under the sun on a wide swath of pristine plains. A gentle wind rustled the green land, tassling his hair. On its purity, Gray stood, his icy shell melting. The sun shone bright. For the first time, he considered something he'd never thought of before. The action he'd never take. No foe was strong enough to warrant it. But here he was. Overwhelmed.

And he surrendered.

Natsu rocked back onto his heels. He stared long and deep into icy arctic pools that were Gray's soul. A small smile graced his lips under eyes caught in an inferno's blaze. "They passed."

"Right." Gray tried to stand, but found all feeling had fled his limbs.

"Captain, let's move."

Shaking his head, Gray gripped his knees and pushed himself standing. "Right."

Together they ran. When Gray stumbled, Natsu caught him. He threw the raven's arm over his shoulder, supporting his weight as they dropped to a jog. They said nothing

* * *

Next Chapter: Yesterday's Web


	13. Yesterday's Web

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

***WARNING: This story is rated M for violence. Only for appropriate audiences 18 years of age or older***

* * *

Chapter 13: Yesterday's Web

"East by NorthEast, three clicks, two on foot."

"Roger." Gray wheezed. With each step they took it seemed that he had to transfer more of his weight onto his pink-haired companion. Though Natsu made no mention of it, he shouldered his old captain's frame and kept pushing on through the alleyways.

By the time they had reached the street, Gray barely had any control left. He grit his teeth, fighting through the haze of black that was devouring his vision. His sight flickered.

And he slipped, crashing to the cold asphalt in the shadows. Natsu cursed, but the raven held up his palm, shaking. For a while he lost it, just staring at the back of his hand. Sure it was there. Straight in front of his face, though he couldn't see a thing. His neck arched back against the rough stucco building behind.

"Captain." Natsu knelt in front of him, squeezing his arm tight in his warm, strong hand. He had to touch him, had to hold on. The last time he let go, that man disappeared and left a gaping wound scathing his heart. He wasn't about to let go again.

"Hold. Two incoming," Gray managed. His normally pale skin had faded to alabaster - his sharp angled face tilted toward the sky above.

"Captain," the pink-haired soldier squeezed tighter.

Ever so slowly, his mentor and love's lips winged up. He let out a soft, airy breath. "I'm not your captain anymore, Salamander."

"Sir," the worry had fought and overwhelmed all the hardened steel military training the former special agent of the Fiori military corps. His brows pressed together. Two pairs of military boots scuffed along the main street. And the two ghosts of Fairy Tail slipped into silence. For his part, Natsu just stared directly at his captain. He would always be Natsu's captain. He would always be the man Natsu looked up to, the man he wanted be one day. He would always be - Natsu shook his head, sliding Gray's arm over his shoulders and hoisting his weight - he would always be the man Natsu's heart beat for.

He hooked his hand around his captain's agile waist, his other grasping Gray's wrist. They shuffled across the wide streets and delved into the shadows of the adjacent alleyway. Overhead, the booming of military Cobra wings wrapped the air in choppy torrents.

"Don't make me carry your heavy ass out of here," Natsu laughed softly, glancing at his captain's lolling head over his shoulder. "Don't you remember that, Captain? That's what you said to me back then."

"Still made me carry your heavy ass," Gray nearly inaudibly mumbled. His words ran together in a jumble, and as the black took over his world, his eyes fell closed.

"Heh. Still can't believe that. How far did you carry me? Thirty clicks?" The fake amusement fell in an instant. Natsu's empty sage eyes flicked to Gray's lifeless face. "Captain? Captain!"

Gritting his teeth, Natsu's jaw set iron. He took Gray's COM popping it into his ear. He carried him gently, supporting all of his weight as he moved through the shadows. He did everything he could to double time while not jostling the raven's damaged frame. He did everything except check Gray's life signs. There was nothing he could do. Either way, he was getting his captain out of there.

Damn it, how long had Natsu been under the protective wing of that man? He wasn't about to let him down now.

"Whoever this is, I need your help." Natsu ordered, his voice the snapping fire of a military squad leader who refused to accept defeat as even a possibility.

To his surprise, it was a woman's voice that snapped back into his ear. "Who is this?"

"Special Agent . . ." He glanced at his captain's almost peaceful face. "Second Lieutenant Natsu Dragneel. Who-"

"Save it. You've got twenty seconds to get across tenth street or your window will be in ten minutes."

"Got it." Natsu's boots dug into the ground. With the burden of Gray's weight, the Salamander's massive toned quads burned. Though he pushed. Gray couldn't wait ten minutes for them to pass. He darted out of the alleyway, Gray hanging from his shoulders as a sack of limp, dead weight. In the open, Natsu sprinted across the empty street.

He caught the quick shutter flicker of window shades darting closed. He breathed hard. His boots slammed on the rough black asphalt. They passed into the shadows of the alley just as Natsu's ears twitched with the rumble of military Humvees.

"What's the evac?"

"Working on it."

"You're working on it!" Natsu growled into the COM. "You came in without an evac plan?"

"We didn't exactly have time, did we? Some dumbass went ahead and put a target on his forehead, and said, 'squeeze the fucking trigger' to the top brass of Fiori."

"Just give me something! Gray's dying!"

"Head East at the next street."

"What? You want me to go down the middle of the street?"

"Overwatch going dark. Stay on the street, heading East."

"Wait!" His COM buzzed sharp static. "Damn it." He bit his lip at the opening to the wide open street. It was suicide. Running out into the open . . . Gods, he didn't even have a gun on him. He glanced at his absent captain again. He was sure Gray had something on him, but there wasn't time to find it.

There wasn't time.

His boot heel tapped anxiously. He didn't even know that woman. But if Gray trusted her . . . Gods, there wasn't a choice, was there? He stepped out into the street, jerking as the sun pelted his face. He twisted on the ball of a foot and headed up the barren street.

"Great plan, Natsu," the pink haired soldier grumbled to himself, painfully aware of the open street at his back. It had been at least five minutes since he'd heard that woman's voice. Hell, for all he knew, she was just turning them over into the Fiori corps' hands.

He froze.

A Humvee engine roared behind him. Quickly searching for an escape route, Natsu swallowed hard when all he found were building walls. He exhaled slowly, looking up into the sky. "I could really use your help here, Captain."

The Humvee screeched to a stop behind him. Boots jumped out of the cab, guns trained.

Natsu just shook his head. "I'm not as good as you are, Captain. You would get us out of this. I know it. Somehow. You'd pull off the impossible. Just like always."

The boots were a rolling thunder, crashing toward him across the street.

The weight of the world fell, breaking Natsu's spine. "I just couldn't save you. I'm sorry, Captain."

But then, glass rained down over him. The soldiers fell like rocks. In an instant, they were gone, their fires squelched. Natsu blinked, turning around.

The door to his side slammed open, crashing into the wall. And out sauntered a woman. Her hips swaggered. Over her shoulder, behind silky black hair clipped tight to her skull, she hung a rifle with a demoness' ease and grace. Her drilling eyes clicked onto Natsu. He was frozen in place.

"Get into the Humvee," she ordered from behind large shining black aviator glasses.

Natsu didn't even hesitate. His mind was spinning, but all that mattered was the limp, lifeless body he supported over his shoulders. Ever so gently, the pink haired soldier laid his captain down on the back bench seat. He climbed in after he secured Gray.

His hand lay protectively, possessively on Gray's shin. The woman climbed in, falling into the driver seat and slamming the heavy metal door behind.

And she glanced back at Natsu's dumbfounded shock. Her red lips tugged in a smirk as she lowered her glasses down the bridge of her nose. She looked at him over the wire frame. "Idiot. Who do you think was it that taught him everything he knows? Now buckle up."

* * *

Turning in the seat, she took the wheel and slammed her foot down on the pedal. Massive all-terrain tires squealed, white smoke hissing at their departure.

"Who are you?" Natsu asked slowly, twisting in the back seat to shift his gaze between the speeding black asphalt behind and the stoic black haired woman in front.

"I'm not in the habit of giving out my name, Pinky." She glanced back at him, her eyes piercing as an eagle's behind her shining sunglasses. "Don't worry, kid. You are way past the point of that luxury. All you need to do now is survive, don't waste your brain on anything else."

"All I need to do now is make sure Gray survives," Natsu mumbled. He looked out over his massive shoulder, at the bouncing road behind the truck. He glanced down to Gray's still frame. He saw a little movement in his chest, just a little.

It was just as it was when they had fallen off the Leviathan. They had been enemies then, and yet when he washed up on that shore next to an unresponsive battered Gray, something inside of him had broken. He couldn't stop himself then from doing everything he could to see those crystal blue eyes again. He couldn't now. "We need to get to a hospital."

"Idiot, we go to a hospital, we are all dead."

"We'll we need to do something!"

"I know someone who can help," the driver said hollowly before cursing with a spit. "Damn it. This is going to be a pain in the ass. If that idiot pupil of mine wakes up, I'm going to kill him."

"Pupil?" Natsu blinked.

"Hold on!" The engine of the Humvee roared a beastly, savage rasp over her bite.

Natsu was thrown back into the stiff seats with the beast's lunge. His eyes widened. A mile ahead, the road was blocked. Jeeps barred the road as a wall. A full battalion bolstered the wall with guns trained. He saw the plume of white smoke before he heard the hissing whip of the projectile. "RPG!"

The hardened soldier threw himself over his still captain. He clutched onto him dearly.

In the driver seat, the woman wore a feral grin. It stretched her lips thin. Eyes shone wild daring. The truck swerved, bucking. She jerked the wheel. Natsu pitched forward crashing to the floor. Gray landed on top of him, squeezing the air out of his lungs. Stars sparked in his black vision. His head collided with the metal strut bolt of the driver seat.

Outside of their tin can, the world exploded. Earth rocketed out from the ground in front of their tires only to rain back down over them in a giant's maelstrom. The metal roof groaned, pelted by Earthly fists. It bent in, collapsing overhead, just as the windshield shattered.

But then, the Humvee rocked on its back legs and kicked off again. As Natsu's sight flickered, the driver slammed her foot to the ground. Another explosion deafened the soldier, but just as he heard its wrath, the truck smashed headfirst into the blockade wall. Natsu's head swiveled, smacking sickeningly with the sound of hollow bone against the metal struts.

His vision sparked. The maws of oblivion opened wide to swallow him whole.

* * *

Next Chapter: While He Sleeps


	14. While He Sleeps

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

***WARNING: This story is rated M for violence. Only for appropriate audiences 18 years of age or older***

A/N: So the impossible has finally happened! I finished my first draft of my book!

Cue the fanfare!

I'll wait for applause.

It's okay.

I can keep waiting.

Life has seriously gotten in the way. Just one thing after another pushed that book out a year and a half. But I turned it over to my editor this morning! There is still a lot of work to be done on it, but I had to celebrate finally getting through my own draft and edit.

Hopefully, I will be able to get it out there before the end of summer!

This is my way of celebrating. Enjoy :)

-James

* * *

 **Chapter 14: While He Sleeps**

 _White cotton._

 _White clouds._

 _He could hear his captain's voice as clear as crystal water born of the snow from the highest mountain._

 _And yet he was a spectre, transparent through the peaceful plain Natsu glided along. He couldn't feel his body, couldn't move a muscle, but he was free. He drifted, listless. With not a care in the world._

 _He could hear his captain's voice rescind, footsteps carrying him away. Natsu thought to chase after him but he just sighed enjoying the lapping wind and the caressing grass. He swore he felt a touch of those cool smooth hands against his skin before his captain finally disappeared into the void._

 _Over the wind he could just make out the words that glacial glade whispered._

 _"Goodbye, Salamander."_

 _The cool breeze rustling the grass died._

 _And the sky coiled and writhed black as the flames dashed over the land. And even as he felt the heat of the wicked breath, he looked up to the sky and watched the snow dance silently down from twisted birth._

 _He reached a palm for the heavens, feeling the flame lick across his skin. As it devoured, Natsu strained. The ruby wrath crawled over his legs, consuming him whole. But as he fell into the fire, a icy tear rolled down his cheek. The snowflake melted in his palm._

* * *

When Natsu's eyes slowly parted, he stared at the abyss of the ceiling above. All around. He stared at the too-bright lights hanging on spaghetti poles, dangling from the high ceiling. He stared at the military medics scurrying around from one bed to another on the endless line of injured Fiori soldiers.

Some were sleeping peacefully. Some were dead. But which was which, Natsu never knew. The young teenager on the bed next to him sat up against the wall playing on his phone. Natsu could just make out 2-d pixelized sprites walking across a green field before the screen flashed.

And then the boy looked at him. Gave him an empty, half-hearted smile. And raised his hand to his brow in salute. He only had a thumb on his right hand, the rest of the mangled flesh wrapped in thick gauze causing unsightly knotting bandages. Half his face was covered in white linen cloth. What lay beneath.

Well.

Natsu sighed heavily swinging his legs over the side of his bed. He swallowed down the bile in the back of his sore, raw throat. Heavily leaning his elbows on his arms, he stared at the beige carpeting beneath his toes, absent in his past.

His name was Jack.

That time that Natsu had spent in the trauma ward of med team 5, it seemed so long ago now. But he couldn't shake those memories. Natsu absently picked at the bandages wrapped around his forearm.

He had spent weeks there. It may as well have been years. He hadn't said a word the entire time. The nurses, they had tried to get him to talk to them at first. They tried striking up conversions, anywhere from Natsu's injuries to his favorite food or sports. But he just sat there, looking at the door.

Jack.

Natsu stood up from his bed, placing his palms in the small of his back and stretching until his spine popped. He hated himself for it, but as he sat there, alone - his squad had gone AWOL sometime before he woke. And every day Jack would have at least four visitors. To do nothing else sometimes than just just silently by his side.

Natsu hated the jealousy that he had felt for that boy. He sighed, leaving his room to wander the halls. Though he set out every morning since they got to that surprisingly large wooden cabin tucked away in the depths of the mountains, he never made it past the next door.

He stuffed his fists into his pockets. And he set about his daily routine.

He walked into the room. Made eye contact with the crazy old woman who was tending to something by Gray's bedside. He would search her eyes for just a single line of hope to clutch onto. And when there was none, he emptily crossed the room and fell into the same old plain, unstained wooden chair on the other side of Gray's bed.

He carefully slid his hand out over the soft eggshell blankets and weaved his fingers lightly with Gray's. Ur - she'd finally told Natsu her name after two days in the cabin - and he had arrived at that cabin door in the middle of the year's blackest night. Nearly one week ago.

He'd carried Gray into the cabin that night and had shoved past the old lady who refused them entrance. His captain had been unresponsive then, his skin clung with the chill of death.

Gray had warmed some since then, but he'd remained as unresponsive as a corpse.

Natsu sighed again and let his memories drift while he stared solemnly at Gray's placid, sleeping face. More than for Gray's sake, Natsu knew, he needed Gray to get better just so he wouldn't lose him again. He wouldn't be alone again.

And he hated himself for it.

He stayed there silently watching over Gray's peaceful face. He still couldn't see the difference between the eternally sleeping and the dead. And so he'd keep hold of Gray's hand throughout the entire day. If he could feel the soft pulse of blood with his heartbeat. If he could feel any warmth.

It was enough for Natsu.

"Do you remember when you'd brought me on to Fairy Tail, Captain?" Natsu's lips twitched as he spoke softly. The corners bent. "I - honestly - it was the best day of my life. I think you nearly put me into shock when you came up to me on the training field.

"You'd been watching from the command tower overwatch as the recruits drilled that day right? I don't even know what I did to get your attention. Gods, I didn't even know you were there. To think, the Captain Gray Fullbuster was watching. The soldier who was more legend than man was taking time out of his day to watch my team play paint ball capture the flag.

"You know, I don't know if I ever told you this. But you were the reason I trained so hard. I thought, maybe one day, if I could be as much of a hero as that man. If I could just have one of the accomplishments you had. I would have been alright with that. More than.

"People said that those stories about you were myths. No one could survive a helicopter crash in the middle of an enemy full army camp and make it out alive, let alone save the pilot and gunnery soldier who had been knocked unconscious in the crash.

"But I always believed. And then I got to see you in action with my own eyes. And those people were right. They were just too impossible to be real. They were all fairy tales."

Natsu looked out the window a long time. Watching the sun bath through the rustic canopy of trees. He snaked his tongue over his chapped lips. But then he chuckled.

"Do you remember what you said to me? I'd just come back from the training. We'd won . . . I don't even know what strategy I used. Because I came back to walk straight into you. Gods, I was frozen in place. You were in white dress. Your blue eyes," Natsu swallowed blushing a little, "you know I never told you this, but I think I fell in love with you then. Your eyes were just so . . ." Natsu dropped his sight to their entwined hands. He slowly traced circles with the pad of his thumb over the back of Gray's pale hand.

He chuckled to himself. "And then you said, 'Pinky, come with me.'" Natsu smiled a slight wavering smile as he bit his lip between sharp incisors. "Damn it, Gray." He leaned over the comatose man, lightly skating his lips over Gray's. He chose instead, to place a soft kiss on his sleeping man's brow.

"Hey."

Natsu sighed, opening his eyes and shifting his gaze to Ur as she stood in the doorway, arms resolutely folded over her chest.

"I don't know how I feel about you kissing my son while he's out."

Natsu frowned. "Your son? I thought you were his teacher."

At that she scoffed into the back of her hand, before her eyes narrowed. "You really don't know anything about him do you?" She blinked. Whatever Ur had meant by that, she was not expecting the immediate flash that stung at the pink haired man. It flashed with an unknown pain across his vibrant sage eyes. He smiled slowly before looking back at Gray. It was a sad smile.

"All I ever knew him as was my captain. I . . . guess - I don't really know -"

"Hey, come on." She jerked her head. "I need your help with something."

Natsu gave Gray one more needing looking, squeezing his hand.

"Come on," Ur stuffed her hands into her ripped jeans' pockets. Her toned shoulders were stiff.

They stepped out into the crisp mountain air. Natsu stared past the rigid woman to the jagged mountainscape. They sat in a bowl surrounded by rocky spires all around. In a way it felt comforting, surrounded on all sides, protected, and walled-in by silent giants of ancient nature. In a way it felt suffocating.

Ur led him out into the trees. There wasn't a cleared treeline like most cabins. No clearing around the man-built walls. The cabin blended directly into the treescape, hidden far underneath the cloak of the ancients. She walked ahead of him until she stopped at the corner of a net of ghillie camouflage. She flung the heavy netting into the air, like throwing off a woven blanket from over the car they had pilfered.

Natsu shook his head when she turned to him. "I'm not leaving him."

"You know," Ur looked up at the bloody sun dipping past the mountain crests. The red light filtered through the trees and painted her face as if soaked with blood. "Gray and Lyon aren't really brothers." She turned to Natsu, hands on her hips. "Did you know that?"

"They always referred to each other as brothers."

Ur nodded slowly. "They are in the truest sense of the word, but," she shook her head slightly, "not by blood." She stared back off into the sunset. "I found them in a small, little town when they were boys. There was a splinter sect starting up in that town that had been growing in numbers and notoriety. To the point where the Fiori Corps sent in a ghost ops squad - they call them dragon squads now."

Natsu glanced back in the direction of the hidden cabin. In the direction of Gray.

"The sect wasn't even from that town." She blew out a breath through her nose. "It turned out they had a lot more resources than we thought. That two-hour night-dagger mission turned into a firefight in the center street if the town that lasted three days.

"I found both of them after it all ended. We were doing door-to-doors. At different corners of the town, I found them in the exact same position. Huddled, screaming, tears pouring. Their parents dead on the floor, their parents blood pooling around them. No, they may not be related by blood, but they are brothers both in how they grew together and what they've seen."

Natsu's jaw knotted as he climbed into the passenger seat of the hard-roofed jeep. "Let's go."

"I thought you weren't going to leave Gray."

"We are going to get Lyon, right? Then let's go."

"Ah, look who's caught up." She climbed into the driver seat, bending in half to connect the free wires hanging below the steering column. They'd stolen the jeep off a city street after totaling the military Humvee. Not like they could have slipped away in a military tracked vehicle anyway.

They wove down the mountain through abandoned emergency fire trails. Natsu stared out the window as the world dropped dark with night's shroud. The sun slipped behind the mountains.

"Tell me more."

"Story time is over, Pinky."

He turned to her. "Tell me more. Please."

She rolled her tongue over her teeth. His eyes were strange. They shone as if a fire burned in emerald gem, yet they were softened in somber sage. Ur pulled out onto the main road, driving blind. She didn't dare turn on the headlights until they were halfway down the mountain.

"I took them with me. I took them. And I ran. I ran and I left it all behind without looking back. It was a hard childhood for those boys. I had to teach them how to hide themselves, how to cover all their tracks. I taught them how to survive.

"You can't understand how pissed I was when Lyon said he was joining the Fiori Corps. They were still too young to understand reason. Even though we'd run for years and I watched them grow, they were still children. We were passing through a village on the outskirts of Fiori that had been ransacked. Men, women, children, the entire village laid slaughtered in the streets.

"I tried, but after that I couldn't stop Lyon from enlisting. And Gray, that idiot went and signed up after him. Said he had to look after his brother. But he was still a boy. He was still hurting from his childhood. So, I convinced them to hold off on enlisting for one year. I put them through hell. The worst boot camp you could imagine.

"But neither one of them said a word about giving up. At least, I hoped, if they didn't give up after it all, they would be safer to be trained." Ur turned onto a well traveled highway. Passing headlights illuminated her pained eyes. "I should have locked them both up. Made sure they couldn't leave until they gave up all that nonsense." Her jaw rolled slowly. And she looked out over the steering wheel as if begging for someone to come along so she could throttle them.

After that, they fell into an eerie silence that matched the tenor of the night. Natsu was awash between the unease of being in civilian clothes, surrounded by civies as they walked the streets at night - his hands shook a little - and his burning desire calling to sprint back to Gray's side. He shouldn't have left him. Even if necessary, he'd promised never to leave Gray's side again. How long had he kept his promise? Four days?

He sighed, dropping his chin into his palm. He stared out the window, sure that every single civie was a spy tracking him. Even that couple holding hands, sharing an ice-cream. It would be nice to walk like that with Gray someday - Natsu blinked - he was thinking that they were spies, but . . .

He shook his head .

"There's a baseball cap in the duffle behind your seat, put it on," Ur commanded softly as she parked along the street.

Natsu raised a brow, but did as he was told. He twisted in the seat, unzipping the bag. His eyes grew wide. It was like a personal armory. He glanced warily at Ur in the driver seat. She had pistols, sub machine guns, Kevlar vests, even concussion grenades.

"There's also a small backpack, put it on." She climbed out of the jeep, shrugging on a light grey fleece. Natsu met her at the sidewalk, fishing his arms through a small plain black backpack.

And Natsu froze. She looked at him with suddenly chilled eyes. Her entire frame locked. Gone was any casual air, or loose movement. Every step was purposeful as they walked down the lightly crowded sidewalk.

"What are you smiling about?"

At that. Natsu couldn't help but let out a small laugh. "It's like working with Gray again. As soon as the go was given."

"Idiot," she said under her breath. She pushed past a small group of highschool kids crowding the sidewalk. "Working with Gray is like working with me, not the other way around. Now keep that cap tucked low. Your hair stands out like a siren."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't ma'am, me, boy. When we get in there, don't look at anything for longer than two seconds, but don't constantly shift your vision. Don't be rude, but don't be overly courteous. Don't say four words when two will do, but don't be curt. Don't walk in a purposeful line, but don't dawdle."

Natsu fished his thumbs through the strap of his pack. "Am I allowed to breath?"

"No. Hands by your sides."

Natsu dropped them immediately.

"Don't stare at me."

"Mmm."

"Don't avoid me."

"Gods! Okay."

Her crystal, frigid eyes snapped to him. And her top lip curled just a little. Enough for the feral wolf to show over her face. "Don't play with me, boy. This is not a game. If the floor falls out, I'm leaving you."

"Got it."

"Do you remember everything I said?

"Yes."

"Good. Now, our objective is to get access to their servers. I need a hardline in. The server room is in the basement."

"Why is it always in the basement?"

"Because everyday people don't need access to them. Why would you put it on an everyday floor? There are two stairways that lead down to the server room."

"And we are just supposed to walk down there? No one is going to stop us."

"It's a hospital. There are bigger things to worry about."

"And security?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Great."

"There's a metal detector in the lobby. The computer in that backpack is going to trip it. Drop it on the outside of the bars, and distract the guard with something. You need to be smooth about this. If he sees you drop it, or reach back for it, we are done."

"Is it just a laptop? Nothing else in the bag?"

"Correct."

"Got it."

"Here we go." The double glass doors opened to the lobby of the hospital. It was utterly empty, save a guard who looked bored by the metal detector, sitting with his considerable girth balanced on a stool that might as well have had toothpick legs under his mass. At the far u-shaped counter, a receptionist slept, her head buried in her folded arms.

Natsu's eyes darted around the metal detector pillars. Like hell he was going to be able to just slip the pack through. Even that fat ass guard wasn't going to miss that. He glanced at Ur, but she just stared straight ahead.

"Evening."

"Evening," the guard mumbled back to her. He took in a long draught of breath, with an animal's wide flared nostrils. She put her keys in a plastic bucket and walked through the machine, not paying Natsu the slightest of mind.

That was until . . .

"Hey, sorry, I have my brother's computer in here." Natsu's face broke with a friendly, shining white toothy smile. He rubbed the back of his head while he held out the backpack to the guard. "Even in here my brother needs it. Dang writer, can't even relax in a hospital bed."

Ur's jaw knotted. Her eyes were icy fire.

The guard grunted and unzipped the pack. He stuck his fat paw into its belly and then nodded, handing Natsu the pack. "Have a good one."

"Thanks. You too."

He met Ur's eyes and smirked as he shrugged on the pack again and walked past her. But she didn't say a word, just guided him to a floor map. She pointed at the illuminated board. And she mumbled to herself. Quietly, but just loud enough to be heard by the guard. "I think he was in, let's see, observation, room 481. That would be these stairs here."

They walked to the stairs, heading straight down. Given that it was one in the morning, the staircase was completely empty. They ran into no problem until Ur reached for the basement door, and the handle clicked in her hand.

"Locked."

"Yeah, thanks for that update, Pinky."

Natsu sighed, pulling out a Swiss army knife from his pocket. He blinked at it. How did that not set off the metal detector? Oops. "Hold on, I can pick the lock."

"Yeah," Ur twisted the metal handle in her gloved hand again. "So can I." She placed her shoulder against the door and grit her teeth as she surged forward. The flimsy lock exploded. Little metal gears on the floor. Straightening her back, she tugged her jacket in place again. And gave him a chilled look, "let's go."

"That's one way to do it." Natsu mumbled, dropping his knife back into his pocket. They walked shoulder to shoulder down the small hall. If they had been walking like normal people, without the caution of ever-vigilant special ops soldiers, they would have tripped over the man sprawled across the floor.

Natsu pursed his lips, reading the name tag and the word custodian above that. He had a tiny plush pillow under his head and a loose traveling blanket hung over his thin aged frame. What now, Natsu mouthed.

Ur just rolled her eyes. She stepped over the man as if he were a log fallen across the trail. Natsu bit the inside of his cheek, staring hard at the man. He stepped over, straddling him. The graveyard shift custodian murmured something his sleep. His shoulders rose and fell between Natsu's ankles. Ur impatiently waved her hand at Natsu.

The custodian shifted slightly. Enough to where Natsu looked down with dread. His shoe lace was pinned underneath the man's bony shoulder. Ur just pinched the corners of her eyes. She silently motioned for Natsu to take off the pack. He handed it to her before she disappeared behind a near door.

Natsu swallowed watching the man carefully. Legs spread, Natsu felt unbelievably vulnerably. His natural instincts demanded he bolt, but his trained mind froze him in place. He slowed his breathing. He counted the seconds between the custodian's own breaths.

He counted an eternity go by before Ur finally emerged from the room again. She stepped over the man, placing her hands on Natsu's hips to balance herself, but paid the pink haired man no mind. She made for the stairs.

Natsu stared at her with wide emerald eyes. And in a hushed whisper, he rasped, "are you seriously going to leave me like this!?"

Ur turned at the broken in door, quirking her lips. She drummed her fingers along her thigh. And then she rolled her eyes. Grabbing the broken door, she slammed it back into the frame as hard as she could. A gunshot of wood exploded in the hallway.

The custodian jumped. Natsu flailed as if bucked off the back of a mustang, a leg suddenly pushed out. He crashed to the ground.

The custodian groggily twisted. "Wha-" He blinked slowly, eyes hazy. He stared at Natsu's direction. "Huh?"

Ur crossed her arms over her chest. "You've got to be freaking kidding me, Carl! Again!? You lazy sack of -" she bit her tongue, apparently holding back a slew of curses. She quickly shook her head. And she pointed at the closed door, the other hand on her hip. She was the utter image of a woman you did not mess with. Her frame was sleek, but every man knew the power that could be unleashed from it. When she stood with a hand on a hip, there was no avoiding that gaze. There was no recovering. You were instantly a small boy in trouble again. And the custodian jumped.

"I-I I'm sorry. I'll get right back. Right back to work. Right away. Right, right . . ." He shakily walked under her outstretched arm. She moved. He jerked.

"Get out of my sight."

"Y-yes. Sorry."

The door cracked shut behind her. Natsu stayed on the ground, the shock palpable in his eyes. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.

She jerked her head back. "They airlifted him to a nearby base. Let's go."

* * *

Next Chapter: Take Care of Him


	15. Take Care of Him

**Dragon Wars Chapter 15:**

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

 *****WARNING: This is an M rated story for graphic violence.*****

 **A/N: There is a short scene between exclamation marks in this chapter. Do not read if squeamish. You can get the gist by skipping and inferring.**

 **-James**

* * *

 **Take Care of Him**

Pressing his shoulder against the concrete of the military fortress, cold in the night, he fiddled with his ear, pressing the receiver of his COM against his ear drum. A matted black assault rifle was supported against his chest, a strap leading as a tight harness over his shoulder. Fidgeting, he tugged the hem of his black ski cap lower over his too-bright bangs. Smiling a little to himself, an image of his captain flashed across his mind. The memory did well to calm his tense, pre-mission nerves.

 _"_ _What the heck am I supposed to do with this?" Captain Fullbuster scowled at his new recruit and Natsu shifted a little, uncomfortable under his crystal blue gaze. "It doesn't matter how much you cover your skin with black matte paint if you leave your freakin' pink hair screaming like a fire siren."_

 _"_ _Sir, I could shave."_

 _"_ _Just," his captain rolled his eyes at him, pulling a black beanie out from his back pocket. He shoved it over Natsu's head, but his touch was almost gentle as he had rolled it up over Natsu's eyes - just enough to cover his brows. "Keep that tucked low."_

 _"_ _Sir!"_

Natsu tugged at his full ski-mask, back in the present. He adjusted the eye holes again, then the opening for his mouth. He never liked these masks, Natsu thought dryly. They were always so constricting. He felt like he could never breath in them. Especially ever since that failed night of blood. This had been the first time he'd worn a ski-mask since, and it nearly choked him with that suffocating memory. Jamming his thumb into his ear, he wiggled the earpiece again.

"Would you stop that!" A harsh, no-nonsense cut snapped in his ear.

Natsu blinked, his hand freezing by his temple.

"Gods damn rooks. Sounds like a beehive cluster-fuck of static in my ear."

Inventive, Natsu pursed his lips. Now he knew where Lieutenant Lyon got his vocabulary. "Sorry, ma'am," Natsu couldn't help the slight amusement in his voice. His mic scraped against his throat, where it was taped with a black collar. Holding out his left wrist, he counted down the time to the _go_. _Two minutes_. As the second hand slowly ticked across it's never-ending circular dance, the former Fairy Tail Dragon Squad member sunk into his battle-ready frame. His mind slowly began to clear, extraneous thoughts sliding back as fog to reveal a star-woven night sky. The last thought that crossed his mind was of his captain. He longed to be back at his side. He wondered how his captain was faring. He wondered just how long it would be before he would hear Gray's voice again. His heart tripped, but then as he forced the thought away, so too did his heart fall in line. Its nerves took the chilled temper his Captain had instilled in all of them.

Gripping a tight claw of his fist in the holes of the grating before him, Natsu breathed a long deep breath.

"Operation Rescue Sleeping Beauty is a go, Pink One."

Natsu grinned a little at the nickname from Ur. So very similar to his Captain.

 _"_ _You are go, Pinky."_

 _Yes Sir._ Natsu's hand clenched and he jerked in his crouch, tugging the grating free with a single rip. It snapped open, breaking free from its metal lattice sunk into the concrete. The lines where Natsu had weakened the metal with a liquid nitrogen spray crumbled to cold, cold dust. Just barely fitting inside the utterly black venting, Natsu stopped long enough to prop the grating back into place, before sidling down into the empty abyss before him. "Pink One en route to basement drop."

* * *

Ur leaned with her back against the half-wall atop a building two blocks North of Pink One and Sleeping Beauty's position. She was as a deathly sentinel, perched, and looming. A Victorian Gargoyle, her long black rifle tucked into the crook of her shoulder was armed and poised as lethal claws. Her index finger was completely motionless as it laid flat across the trigger frame. With an eye pressed to her scope, she slowly, and methodically, continued her scan of the six floors of the target building. In the last two hours she had watched, a silent observer as night fell and time crept into tomorrow. The personnel had thinned. All that was left now were the guards, guards by the look of them who were armed to the teeth. They paced down every hall that she could see. There were more still, she knew, perched in lookouts up in the mountainside behind the building. Those sentries were a worry, but a later one, now that that pink-haired brat had managed to snake his way into the labyrinth inside the building.

It was a hospital on the outside, marked with all the familiar pedestrian drapings. But, the comforting sight of ambulances and clean, medical lobbies were just a facade. They were in what had become known as the Shadow Council's Dragon Lair. No one quite knew what ever went on within those seemingly benign Fiori military hospital walls. This building had the stain of blood and the darkness of the vile acts of war, that, had they ever been known to the public, the chaos of protests would have overwhelmed the magistrate.

A hospital by necessity, it was the home of high-valued targets who had been injured in their capture. A hospital in the sense only to keep their captives alive. Alive, long enough to spill the deepest secrets of Fiori's enemies. Ur had brought many spies and high-ranking officers of rebel nations here, in her time as a Dragon Squad leader. But even she did not know what happened within those walls. Though, the thick sound-proofing, isolated, and heavily guarded location didn't exactly lead her to believe it was sponge-baths and cotton pillows inside. And Lyon was inside that Dragon Lair.

Her only hope was that he had yet to wake. For if he had come to already, his mind may have already been lost to the torture she was sure was set for him. Her own mind churned more than she had ever allowed in her days as a soldier. She couldn't help the worry that burdened her chest with bags of lead. Her son was in there. And it was all she could do, to not slam her boot through the front door and light the place.

 _Come on, Pink One._

* * *

Natsu had walked, crouched over in a ball, his spine rolled at an awkward angle as he shimmied down the tight metal vent ducts. It had seemed like an eternity, but finally, he saw a dim light under his boots. A slotted grating let in the smallest of dim radiances from the basement below. Though, it was enough. Peering through the knife-thin slots in the grating, Natsu saw the silhouette of a mountain of a man directly beneath him. He could just make out the distinct, non-organic, rectangular edges of the butt of an M4 Carbine in his hands.

 _So much for hospital security._ He stayed there as a few heartbeats past. Righting his rifle, Natsu closed an eye, and set the other down the iron sights over the barrel of his gun. But his finger hesitated on the trigger. This was a Fiori soldier. He was not Natsu's enemy. He may have even known this man in his sights. He may have trained side-by-side with Natsu back at the academy. Regardless, they had shared the same education, they had shared the same drills, and they had both known the same land they had loved beneath their feet. Swallowing, Natsu closed his eyes completely. It was like shooting himself. He clenched his teeth. If that was what it took to protect the captain and the lieutenant . . .

 _May you forgive me, brother_. Natsu's finger clenched and the burst of muted rounds escaped the barrel of his rifle. They ripped through the metal sheeting as paper and just the same, sliced through flesh and bone. The man hit the ground in a lump, his last breath squeezing out his lungs. Natsu swallowed back the bile in his throat, gripping the torn grating, and then with his hands on the edge of the vent, swung down to the floor.

He went immediately to the fallen soldier, and supported the man's limp neck in the palm of his hand. He pressed his brow to the lifeless man's. "Sleep in peace." Pulling the man to a corner, Natsu hid the corpse behind a set of stacked plumbing pipes. Gently, his gloved fingers pulled the soldier's eyelids closed. He stood to his full height and squared his shoulders. "Pink One, basement breached. Moving to first floor, now." He turned his back to the man. If this is what it meant, Natsu would throw it all away. He would kill himself a thousand times if that is what it meant to be by Captain Fullbuster - Gray's side.

Silently, he made his way up the basement steps. The weight of his mission had grown a million-fold on his shoulders, but he was sure he would keep moving, one step at a time. Crouching at the last step, Natsu slid a small, beveled mirror around the corner. Glancing out the windows, he could just see the North Star in the sky. He reached up to his neck and found his COM line between his thumb and forefinger. He clicked his mic on and off twice.

A single buzz of static popped back into his ear in reply. In the mirror, he saw the figure of a soldier moving his way. It would only be five seconds. Fluidly withdrawing the telescoping pole and mirror, Natsu folded them and tucked them into his vest pocket. He freed his combat knife from his belt.

Breathing stopped, Natsu waited until he heard the soft _slick_ of military-grade boots on waxed hospital floors. Then he saw the steel-towed front pass the corner. Uncoiling as a viper, Natsu sprung up and roughly grabbed the man across his chest with his left hand. He dragged him back, seamlessly bringing up his knife and winced as he felt the hot splash of blood against his wrist. Gently, Natsu guided the still man down to the ground. He slid his knife back into its sheath at his hip. Staying close to the wall, Natsu quickly covered the length of the hall in the corners' shadows. He passed by a prone man, blood pooling on the floor around him. The window on the wall opposite had splintered where two bullets had crashed through the pane.

Natsu fit his back against the far wall and swiped at his mask covered face with his left hand. He felt the blood there. Even where there was none. He gave himself a quick shake of the head. And then, he wrapped his hand around the bar handle of the hallway door. He cracked it open and peered through the slight opening he made. It was the main lobby. Natsu could see the lit emergency lights illuminating the glass front in a bloody ruby. The main doors faced West - no help from Overwatch. Three guards kept a regimented patrol. Silently pulling the door closed, Natsu sidestepped away from the door and headed for the second-floor stairwell.

"Lobby too hot. Plan A is aborted. Moving to Plan B." Natsu spoke quietly and calmly as he made his way up the empty stairs, stopping every few steps to listen for any sign of life.

"Roger, Pink One. Be advised, second floor looks ghost town. Overwatch is blind."

"Confirmed. Breaching now." Natsu slid onto the second floor in the same way he did the first. Though, every precaution he took revealed no movement. No targets sighted. And it made his skin crawl.

Every step he took sounded like a gunshot, the sound of the sole of his boot meeting the floor ricocheted through his skull. He turned down an East-heading hall. Again, every room, empty. Every hall, abandoned. Whether it was luck or not - Natsu didn't dare believe in good fortune then. He ducked inside the first empty patient room he found with a doctor's tower computer station inside. Closing the door behind him, he checked all the corners of the room until he was confident enough to stand.

Shaking his head to himself, he tried to calm the unease by focusing on his task at hand. Slipping out a box from his backpack, Natsu fed a wire into the back of the computer tower. He propped the antennas and set it down on the plastic trey underneath. A plastic trey that had been dyed red. "Connection upload. Confirm link."

Natsu moved to the nearest bed, cautious of the lump under the sheets.

"Link confirmed, starting download now. Stand by."

Gripping the sheet in his blood-stained glove, Natsu peeled back the cloth. It detached itself from the lump underneath with a sick, wet, _sthliiick_. He looked down.

And jumped back.

"Mother of -" He covered his mouth, unable to look away. "Gods. Holy, shit. God-"

"Pink One, calm down."

"What the hell happens here?" The trained, and battle-hardened soldier barely fought back the surge of vomit in his throat.

!

On the mattress was a completely disfigured thing. Thing was all Natsu could use to describe it. It was a man once, Natsu knew, which nearly made him hurl again. The skin of his right arm had been peeled back, scalpels needled the muscles and tendons underneath. The layers of peeled back flesh were like a pin cushion. A tendon was cut leading from a stump that was once the man's thumb. His fingers were missing. His hand crumpled as if smashed in an industrial vice. Blood was sprayed everywhere on the white sheets. Staring with horror-stricken eyes, his hand shook over his mouth.

That meant the man had still been alive when his arm was cut open.

His legs were as absent as his fingers, cut off in disfigured stumps mid-thigh. His genitals had been sliced open, splayed out on the bloodied sheets. Alligator clamps were clipped to the long-since cold skin. They lead to a car battery propped on a nurse's stand.

Leading up, a long cut sliced up the poor creature's stomach. His intestines had literally been ripped from his body, to lay in a sickening lump on top of his ribs. The man's face was so contorted, Natsu could barely even register the gut-wrenching scene. Its right eye was gone, leaving behind a hollow socket back into the man's skulls. Its left eye was still attached by the retina, but hung loosely over its bare, white cheek bone.

What sick mind would do this? It didn't matter if this was a foe. No one deserved this. Natsu knew the poor wretch had been awake for every second of the torture that had left his body in this state. When the revulsion and shock and just started to barely diminish, they were replaced with a burning fury behind Natsu's emerald eyes. He squeezed his gloved hand around the grip of his assault rifle.

!

"Download complete. Searching now. Searching. Found him. Sleeping Beauty is on the fourth floor, West wing in what has been called the, "Waiting Room."

"Confirmed." The pink-haired soldier felt the humanity in him burn away with the pain behind his eyes. "Need information on the torturer."

"Pink One?"

"Someone did this to this person. I need to know who."

"Pink One, that is not your concern."

"Like hell!" Natsu growled, slashing his hand through the air, and snapped into his mic. "I'm not moving from this room until you tell me who did this to this man."

"Hold." Came back a crisp reply. But it was soon followed by, "There are a list of medical doctors on the employee registry and then an encrypted list of special ops. We have no time now. I'll save this for later."

"But -"

"You can't do anything about it right now, anyway, soldier. Save it."

"Sir," Natsu's tongue was frosty as he opened the door back into the empty hallway. The fury he felt, it was felt too by the soldiers whose poor misfortune it was to be guarding the third floor that night. They were part of the monster of that building, as far as Natsu saw it. No longer were they his brothers. They were demons incarnate, guarding the depths of human depravity. One soldier lay crumpled on the floor, a combat knife buried in his neck. The next, still writhed under Natsu's knee. His eyes bugged out, as Natsu dispassionately crushed the man's wind pipe with his knee cap. He kept his gloved palm like a claw over the man's lips. Until, his eyes rolled back into his skull. Natsu stood as a specter, his shoulders slung with a possessed wrath. He cracked his neck as he moved down the hall.

A soldier walked around the corner, to be met with a quick, whipping elbow in his face. Blood gushed back, his nose shattering. In a single fluid motion, Natsu spun around the man. One hand gripped the man's wrist just above his rifle, his left hand jabbed until the soldier's elbow inverted with a wet crack. Bringing up his left hand, Natsu curled his fingers in the cuff of the man's shirt, above his bullet proof vest, and slammed his head into the sharp corner of the tiled wall. His skull cracked with a sick _thwack_. A lifeless form slid down the wall as Natsu moved on.

Effortlessly, we whipped his sidearm free of its holster and buried four silent rounds into the next soldier's exposed neck.

Natsu jerked forward, hit in the shoulder by a truck. But, he just turned around, giving his assailant a pissed glare. The man who clutched at his broken throat, managed to squeeze the trigger on his pistol again. This time, the bullet zoomed past Natsu, shattering an overhead florescent light tube. As the glass rained down over him, and blood trickled out from his scapula, Natsu brought up his sidearm and silently fired his m9 twice. The man fell to the ground as a sack.

Rolling his shoulder, Natsu grit his teeth, more irritated at the lack of mobility than the pain. The adrenaline pumping through his system as a firehose seemed to dull the pain to a moth wings' flutter. Ripping the shoulder off his shirt, Natsu took a roll of thick gauze from his vest and wrapped it tight under his vest. He tied it, ripped the end between his teeth, and moved to the stairway. "Third floor, clear. Heading to target floor, now."

When he stepped foot onto the fourth floor, Natsu found the main hall's guards all incapacitated, laying as lifeless lumps on the sterile hospital floor. He stepped over them, counting room numbers until he found the target's. He braced his shoulder against the door.

"Ready for breach. On your go."

"That's a go, Pink One."

Twisting the handle in his palm, Natsu slammed the door open with his shoulder. In a blur of motion, he brought up his sidearm and swept the hospital room from corner to corner. "Clear." He slipped his pistol back onto his hip, and stepped to the bedside. Lyon lay completely motionless. A set of monitors were connected to him through sticky electrodes, but none seemed to be doing more than report on his state. He was not connected to even an IV.

But, Natsu let out a breath. He was whole and unmarred. After what he had seen two floors down, he had dreaded what he would finally find lying in Lyon's bed. Those bastards hadn't started on him yet. Natsu squeezed Lyon's hand in his. Sliding Lyon's arm over his shoulders, Natsu stood Lyon up, taking his weight on his uninjured side. _Time to get you out of here, lieutenant._ "Target secure."

"It's on you, now, Pink One. Overwatch going dark."

A pop signaled in Natsu's ear. This was the part of the plan where Natsu really needed that luck to actually be true. After a few steps, Natsu knew he couldn't manage Lyon's dead weight this way. He flipped his lieutenant to cradle him in his arms. Natsu's shoulder burned. He could feel blood soaking his bandage anew as his muscles bulged.

But, he paid it no heed, and he carried Lyon out of the room.

Somehow, and Natsu never even would be able to figure it out, looking back, but he had managed to carry Lyon down to the underground parking garage entrance without incident. In fact, Natsu pushed Lyon's comatose body into the back seat of a parked four-door sedan, it was utterly silent. He climbed into the driver seat, a ghost in the night as he sat behind the wheel. This was where Ur was supposed to meet him. He turned his wrist over to the underside again, she was late.

He tapped absently on the worn steering wheel cover, biting his lip as he stared out the windshield. In the mirror he was just seeing the first light of dawn begin to peek up over the mountains. _Come on, come on, come on. Where are you?_

 _"_ Gray never had anything he really cared about, did you know that?" Ur's voice sounded, conversationally in Natsu ear causing him to scowl.

"Where are you? We are ready for EVAC."

She continued as if not hearing him. "There was a bond. He'd always cared for me and he looked after Lyon as if they were brothers. But, there was never really anything that his eyes got passionate about. His parents' death had left a hole in him and though he lived day by day, there was never what you would call a drive, or fire of life in him. As I trained him into a hardened soldier, that icy shell just got thicker."

It was then that Natsu heard a thunderous explosion. He turned just in time to see the foundations of under the West side of the hospital collapse. The building began to tilter, crumbling under its own weight. Natsu ducked under the steering wheel. Four armed guards came running from the parking garage entrance, straight past the front bumper of the car.

Static popped in Natsu's ear. Chaos followed. "That was, until he came to me a few days ago. Gray had a look in his eyes that I had always wanted to see. There was a fire burning behind his blue stoic look. There was something in this world he genuinely cared about. Someone.

"You, don't let him lose that flame, Pinky. You hear me?" Rounds of gunfire sparked over their COM. "You've got Lyon. Get out of here. And you get back to Gray's side and never leave it." A soft laugh over gunfire came through Natsu's earpiece. "This is my last order as a soldier, you better follow it well, boy. Take care of him."

Natsu tried to protest, but the line went dead in his ear. Peeling his ski mask off, Natsu bent in half and ripped down two wires from under the steering column. He stripped then connected the bare ends, sparking the engine to life. He silently turned it into gear and pulled out of the garage, slipping away under the shroud of chaos.

He glanced at the fire burning crimson in the rear-view. Then, to Lyon. Then, to the road ahead. His boot met the floor and the car sped on into the horizon.

* * *

Next Chapter: Under the Stars


	16. Under the Stars

Disclaimer: The following is a literary work made for entertainment purposes. Neither the author nor the forums in which the following work appear make any profit off of the distribution of this work. Fairy Tail and its characters are the property of its creator Hiro Mashima. Support the original work.

* * *

 **Dragon Wars 16:**

 **Under the Stars**

Leaning against a worn, wooden fence, Natsu looked up to the twinkling starlit sky with an unsure breath. In his fingers, a small, shining, external hard drive twisted aimlessly. He hadn't felt this lost since he had woken up alone, the sole member left of a traitorous, renegade Dragon Squad.

A night had past quietly since he had made it back to the cabin. The old woman had said nothing of Ur's absence. She had just looked at Natsu. She'd met his eyes until he couldn't bare it. He had looked away and she had just moved on. She'd motioned with short flicks of her long, bony fingers for Natsu to carry the unconscious Lyon inside.

All this time - Natsu let the chilled mountain air stab his lungs - he had thought until his mind was over-wracked. He had been spinning himself in circles with the captain. But now. Now, he really felt that he had time to think, alone again. And it clawed at him with misty claws, a lurking beast sitting in the dark corners of his mind. The entire chain of events to that night, it was all a wicked, spanning spider web. Natsu felt utterly stuck, no matter which way he turned.

He'd put Lyon in that coma.

He had shot his captain - the one person in the world, he could honestly say he loved.

He had seen things in the Dragon Lair that he could never unsee.

Gray's teacher and foster mother had sacrificed herself so that Natsu may escape with her son.

It was all just too much to process. Then, there was even more shadow over Natsu's thoughts. What lay ahead? He'd found that hard drive on the passenger seat of their get-away car. Ur had kept her promise to give him the name of the torturer-doctors from that 'hospital'. When Gray woke, where would he go? Could Natsu even rightfully follow him?

Slowly, he traced his thumbnail along the mirror-surface of the metal hard disk. "I just don't know," Natsu sighed, his words escaping on a breath.

"It was simpler back then, wasn't it?"

Jaw dropping, Natsu's eyes grew wide, sage in the night's light. "C-captain!"

"Back when we didn't know anything." Gray continued. His shirt hung loose, unbuttoned, trailing past his sides. Stark white bandage nearly glowed with the gibbous moon over his pale torso. He moved slowly, his body jerking with a limp. The pink haired soldier jumped to support his captain, though Gray just shrugged him off. He managed to the rickety fence-line along the edge of the small cabin. With a hand wrapped around the splintery wood, he just barely held himself upright.

Natsu couldn't help it - his lips trembled slightly at seeing his captain. The painted night shone a divine radiance down, upon his smooth, pale face. His sharp jaw cut a dark shadow over his wrapped chest. "Captain, you shouldn't be up."

"I shouldn't be alive, Natsu, yet I'm standing here." He stayed with his face tilted to the heavens, the stars twinkling in his calm, blue eyes. "I'll stay on my feet as long as this world will let me."

"C-c-aptain, I'm so sorry. I-"

"The stars are beautiful tonight, don't ya think?" Finally, Gray's gaze drifted down from the stars above, and fell to the fires of the embodiment of life. "Care for a walk?"

"You shouldn't be walking."

"Then," Gray swung his arm over Natsu's shoulders, "you'll have to support me. Come on," the injured man nodded his head toward the trees. "I need to get away from that old hag before she realizes I'm awake."

"Old hag?" Natsu took his captain over his shoulder without even a thought. The hard drive slipped into his pocket, forgotten. They walked slowly together, the pink haired soldier was hyper-aware of how each movement jostled Gray.

The raven just shook his head, looking back over his shoulder as they walked away from the house. "We had come here a couple of times when we were kids. The old hag is Ur's mother . . . well, as much as Ur's mother as she was to us."

"So, she's like your grandma?" Swallowing, Natsu forced himself past the twinge he felt every time Gray said 'Ur'. "Why do you call her an old hag?"

"Because she is one." Gray shook his head but when Natsu glanced at him, it wasn't with any disdain that those blue eyes looked back at the lone cabin in the woods. There were ghosts swirling in eddies in the deep blue. "Hmph," the raven's lips quirked in a little smile. "Last time I was here was when I was twelve." His eyes glinting as he scanned the trees around, and he raised his free arm, pointing out into the blackness. "Go that way. There's something . . . I wonder if it's still there."

"Gray, I need to tell you something," Natsu mumbled, "it's about Ur."

"I still remember the last time we were here, Lyon and I." The cold, fragile sharpshooter chuckled airily. "We stayed out all night in the woods - it was the middle of winter and the snow had to have been up to our chests. Ur had told us to stay inside, but it was just too nice out. We probably went tromping through the snow, throwing snowballs at each other for hours. They were so mad, Ur, and that old hag. We were sick for a week."

"Gray, I really need to -"

"I couldn't stand that old hag. I still think she was trying to off us back then. She'd concoct these nearly bubbling pots of 'medicine'. May as well have been in a cauldron."

Frowning, Natsu eyed his captain carefully. Never in the years he had known the captain had he been so talkative. Natsu just locked his jaw. It was clear his captain did not want to hear about Ur, and Natsu didn't know how to really break it. So, he just continued to carry Gray in the direction he had pointed, and they quickly fell into a deathly quiet. Other than the crisp crackles of snapping twigs under his boots, the boys drifted silently off into the forest tucked into the night.

That was until Gray brightened, "ah! There we go." They stopped at a tall redwood, the thick bark on it hulked as armor. It covered all of the tree's towering structure, save a small patch that had been chipped away. Gray reached out his free hand. His fingertips slid over the naked tree and the arrow carved into its flesh. His index finger traced the carved gouge in the otherwise pristine ancient guardian of nature. "It's just this way," Gray tilted his head in the direction the arrow led.

In his burdened mind, Natsu hadn't given any thought to where Gray was leading them. But, when the tree-line parted, Natsu couldn't help but stare in awe at the painting before him. The moonlight bathed down over a small clearing, the pure light streaming as gentle curtains through the trees. A small pool of water sat in a white rock basin, the surface shimmering as the small stream met its embrace, to carry down the mountain as it tipped over the pool.

"Untouched by time." Whispered words fell off Gray's lips. A small smile tugged at his lips. Whether it was from happiness or a mosaic of his sorrows, Gray didn't know. "Put me down over there, Natsu."

Gingerly sliding off of Natsu's shoulder, and with his support, Gray propped his back against a flat slate rock. He tilted his head back, the starlight shining down over his pearlescent face. Natsu just stared at the stars, reflecting in the crystal blues of his eyes. Sitting at his side, Natsu leaned back against the rock, chilled in the night. He didn't even think as he weaved his fingers with Gray's. He locked them together.

They stayed like that for a time. Gray just stared off at the stars. Natsu just stared off after Gray. Glancing between the ethereal water and Gray's eyes, Natsu spent the silence silently thinking how similar the two looked. Their beauty was eternal. It was in their depths, that their real allure beckoned. There was so much more to be seen. The longer you looked, the deeper you'd find the endless pool, so full of memory. And yet, there was a deep sadness to them both. It was in the was the moonlight cast the water in a solemn glow, just as it shone the ghosts in the somber eyes. He squeezed Gray's hand in his.

"I," Gray broke the silence in the glade for the first time. He swallowed, nodding slowly as his gaze drifted down from the heavens. He looked over the serene opening under the stars. "I want to be buried here."

"G-Gray!" Natsu sat up straight, the concern instant in his green eyes.

"Can you make me that promise, Natsu? Will you make sure this is where I'll rest? Na-" Gray blinked. His old subordinate was staring at him with shocked eyes, his mouth ajar. Starlight glistened off tears pouring over his sharp cheekbones.

"Don't talk like that." His hand actually began to shake in Gray's. "Don't . . . please."

"It's inevitable, Salamander. I've had one foot in the grave for a long time now." Gently framing Natsu's face, Gray wiped his thumb under Natsu's eyes. "There's no need to cry."

"Don't tell me not to cry!" Everything in Natsu rushed to the surface. Overwhelmed, he buried his face in Gray's shoulder. Exhaustion had rubbed him raw, and his emotions were all that was left. Forsaking Gray's hand, Natsu wrapped his arms around his captain. He didn't dare squeeze the fragile frame, but he held him close in his arms all the same. "Don't you dare. I - I can't take any more of this! You don't get to die. You just don't! I won't let you!"

Wordlessly, Gray wrapped his hand around Natsu's quaking arm. He stared at the stars dancing on the softly turning water. And he weaved his other hand up, caressing Natsu's head. "Sorry. I didn't mean now. Just . . . eventually."

"No 'eventually'. I don't even want to hear it." Pulling back, Natsu tucked his chin over Gray's shoulder. "I don't think I'd make it through another day without you. Just having you lying there, unconscious, I felt like every day I was drifting away. If you didn't wake up . . ." swallowing, Natsu shook his head, "I'm not leaving you."

"Stubborn."

"Heh," Natsu sniffed back some tears. "You should know, Captain."

"Falling in love with a subordinate." Gray slowly shook his head. His chest hurt with a deep pang, but it wasn't from any injury. At least, not a physical one. "Too bad it's not permitted in the Fiori Corps."

"Good thing we aren't in the Fiori Corps anymore then." Bringing up his hand, he guided Gray's chin to turn his head. Their lips met softly under the moonlight.

"N-" Gray had let himself be taken in by his heart, but his cold nerves forced him to jerk back. "Natsu, I can't."

"You just said you were falling in love with me."

Gliding his tongue over his bottom lip, Gray tasted the slight fire of Natsu's touch there. But he stared out at the watery pool, as his lips bent into a self-depreciating smile just the same. "I did. I am." He scoffed. "I probably already have. I'd thought that it was just a feeling of needing that connection to my squad mate. But, there was always something more, always you."

"So, what's the problem?"

"I just -"

"You deserve happiness, Gray."

"What?" Gray blinked in surprise. Then he feinted a smile. "You do know me."

"No," Natsu let out a long sigh, dropping his chin back onto his captain's shoulder. "But I'd like to. You put the world on your shoulders, put up a frozen mask, and you blame yourself for everything that has happened. Why can't you just be you, away from all of that?"

"Because, I can't forget. I'm happy for you, Natsu, that you don't feel this. Every time I close my eyes, I see Romeo. I can't go on living, happy, knowing that I led him to his grave."

" 'Captain Gray Fullbuster' " Natsu spoke in an even tone. " 'Can you believe this, Natsu? I mean, it's _the_ Captain Fullbuster! Do you know how long I've looked up to him? To be picked by him - you know how I feel, right, Natsu? It's a dream come true!' " Giving the man in his arms a light squeeze, Natsu continued, "That's what Romeo said to me when we were running drills for that last mission. You made him the happiest man he could be when you picked him for our squad. And, I did know how he felt, because it was the exact same way I had felt - how I still feel.

"We saw you as a hero, Gray. You were the legend that had measured our dreams."

"Some hero," Gray murmured.

"Yeah, some hero," Natsu repeated but with an irritation. "We wanted to be just like you. To be recognized by you was beyond all our hopes. It defined who we were. We were important. We were really something, because, hey, look, _the_ Captain Gray Fullbuster wanted _us_. Our dreams and our worth were validated. That is the greatest feeling in the world and the greatest gift you could give someone. But, now, you're destroying that.

"Do you know what you are doing, Gray? No," he balled his fist in Gray's shirt, "Because if you did, you would know how much you are hurting Romeo now. What you're doing, it's worse than death for us. You're casting Romeo as a weight. Romeo's memory is what has you like this? What about Romeo's dream? That lies right here." Natsu jabbed his pointer finger into Gray's chest, over his heart. "You can hurt Romeo by what you do, Gray. Not what happened - that, you couldn't have done anything about. But if you sully Romeo - our - dream, then you take away the worth of what we lived for, with it. You have to go on living to the fullest, for Romeo."

"Live." Gray reached up to the heavens, starlight streaming between his fingers. "What am I supposed to do?"

"First, you forgive yourself."

"I can't."

"You have to."

"I ca-"

"You aren't to blame! None of it. None of it is your fault, Gray. Not Romeo. And not your parents."

"My parents?" Gray twisted in Natsu's hold and stared directly into his eyes.

"You aren't to blame, Gray. There's nothing you could have done. It's not your fault." Tears spilt as glacial eyes melt. In much the same way Gray had soothed Natsu just a moment earlier, Natsu brought his hand up and wove it through Gray's raven hair. He brought Gray down into his shoulder and leaned back against the cold, flat stone. "You aren't alone anymore, Gray. I'm always going to be here with you." Natsu looked up to the stars so far away, then closed his eyes. "I love you, Gray."

* * *

Natsu stayed in that glade for an ephemeral light. The stars shone. The moon bathed the boys in its light. Gray had succumbed to sleep through his tears. Gray had been that person for Natsu. He was the one person who made all the loneliness, all the pain fade, until it was manageable. They never completely went away, but when he was by Gray's side, they didn't hold Natsu back from life. He would be that person for Gray.

He'd wanted to stay longer, just them, in that tranquil glade, but Gray would be best off back in a warm bed to recover. Natsu had carried Gray in his arms back through the sleeping forest and silently placed him in bed again. Gently, he tucked the blankets over his captain. And bent over to softly kiss his brow.

Even in his sleep, a peacefulness had fallen over Gray's face that Natsu had never seen before. It wasn't the cold emptiness of his steeled soldier mind. Nor was it burdened with any pain. Natsu had a smile on his lips as he stepped out of the cabin.

Scrubbing his fingers back through his hair, Natsu let out a sigh that plumed in the chilled mountain air.

"You have my blessing."

Natsu jerked, caught completely off guard in his exhaustion. Next to him was the old doctor. She stood with her hands pressed into the small of her back. Her coat flanged at her neck with what looked to be horns coming out of the hem. Yet she remained completely calm, staring up at the thinking sky. "I have your what?"

"You're a good boy. You have my blessing to take my grandson."

 _Take care of my son_.

The last words Ur spoke echoed in Natsu's mind. "If he'll have me."

"He will. He may need to be hit over the head a few times before he'll realize that he needs someone else, but he will."

"I'm sorry about all of this."

"So are we all. What became of my daughter?"

"I -" Natsu was too raw and empty for this. He felt like he was floating among the stars with barely a tether back to the ground. "Ur's dead. She sacrificed herself for me."

"I see."

"Lyon and I wouldn't have made it out if it wasn't for her. She drew the entire camp's attention. She died a hero."

"What were her last moments like?"

Natsu's voice hitched, but he continued on. To lie or sugar-coat it would have hurt the old woman more. "I heard her over our COM. She was in a firefight. It was her against a thousand soldiers. Then, there was an explosion."

Suddenly, the old woman's eyes darted down from the stars. She stared at Natsu out of the sides of her eyes. "You didn't see her die?"

"No."

She brought up a wrinkly hand over her face and then the old woman did the last thing Natsu would ever have expected.

!

She laughed.

!

"Oh, I trained her well."

"Sorry, what?"

The old woman patted Natsu on the shoulder. "That's enough, boy. Thank you. I think I'll go make a cup of tea."

Natsu was left dumbfounded, rooted under the stars, as he watched the old woman disappear back into her cabin.

* * *

Next Chapter: **Recovery**


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